Above the Abyss
by BrittanyS74123
Summary: Lydia Watson has lived in Rapture for most of her life. She wishes to restore it to its former glory but knows that as long as ADAM and Andrew Ryan exist, there cannot be change. When a lone survivor from a plane crash finds his way into Rapture, Lydia is faced with the decision to save her city or risk Rapture finding out a dark secret. I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING IN BIOSHOCK.
1. Chapter 1 The Plane Crash

**DISCLAIMER: I DO NOT OWN ANY BIOSHOCK CHARACTERS, PLACES, ETC.**

Chapter One - The Plane Crash

Lydia Watson felt the kickback of the shotgun and wasn't sure if it had been the gun or the Splicer until she saw the deformed body fall to the ground, limp with a hole in his head. The other Splicers ambushed her from all sides of the Farmer's Market. Lydia's hand became warm with the plasmid Incinerate and concentrated on powering it up as she dodged a blow from a crowbar.

Her ears filled with the screams of a female splicer to her left as she threw the fireball in that direction and cocked her gun. Another Splicer ran behind her and shot her in the back of the leg with a pistol. Lydia screamed in pain, but managed to turn around and shot a bulled into the ribcage of the armed ADAM addict. A large hole replaced the Splicer's heart and lungs as it gasped for air for only a few seconds, then breathed its last. Lydia couldn't even tell by the corpse whether this Splicer had been a man or a woman. She dropped the last three Splicers with ease of plasmids and then the adrenaline began to wear down. She winced in pain as the warmth of blood dribbled down her leg and into her shoe. She turned her head to see the wound and decided to stitch it up where she was.

Lydia pulled out a medkit and grabbed the needle-nose pliers. She was accustomed to being shot, but she knew that she would _never_ get used to the pain of pulling the bullet out. The feeling of the cold pliers inside her muscle made her shiver and the pain shot up her leg and into her chest, making it difficult to breathe. She felt the pliers scratch against the small metal bullet and with one painful swipe, yanked the bullet out. Lydia was forced to swallow her scream so as to not call more Splicers her way. Her eyes watered as she looked up at the torn signs around the Farmer's Market. The red cloth looked as though it was reaching down to her in a worthless comfort.

Lydia threw the bullet aside and pulled out the alcohol and stitches and quickly stitched the dime sized hole in her leg. She also squeezed a few drops of ADAM out of a closely-guarded syringe she kept on her at all times. This would cause the wound to heal much quicker than if she had left it alone. The searing pain had left her breathless as the pressure dissipated from her being. She sat with her back against a store counter for a few minutes, regaining the breath that had been stolen.

Lydia looked around at the Farmer's Market, reminiscing about what Rapture had looked like when she was young. The signs were a brilliant red with gold lettering and the store shelves were filled with cheeses, meats, bread, and anything one could imagine. She remembered how busy the market was on a daily basis, with all of the food being grown in Rapture. The entire marketplace sounded of murmurs of potential buyers and the occasional groan of a Big Daddy.

Lydia snapped into consciousness by the sound of a real Big Daddy and felt her heart begin to race and rise to her throat. She attempted to swallow the pounding organ, but to no avail. Looking around, she noticed that she could hide inside a walk in freezer behind her. She stood up quickly and sprinted to the freezer and closed the door nearly the whole way. The rancid smell of old meat choked her but she did not run. She peeked through the crack in the door and saw the yellow lights of the big daddy suit. The Bouncer series Big Daddy did not look like a scuba suit, but rather a metal monster that towered over the tallest of Rapture inhabitants.

"Look Mr. Bubbles," the metallic but sweet voice of the Little Sister rang out. Lydia's throat slowly closed tightly. "Here are some angels who need our kisses!" The girl came into Lydia's view.

Little Sisters were always clad in a pink dress with four white buttons. Their hair was pulled back and a bow sat on the top of their head. They looked almost like a normal little girl, other than their eyes which glowed with a brilliant light. Always on their person, the Little Sisters carried a syringe like gun with a container for the ADAM they collected. The container had a baby bottle top where the little girls could drink the ADAM they sucked from the recently deceased.

Lydia waited for what seemed like an eternity while the Little Sister drew the ADAM out of each one of the Splicers that she had killed singing to the bodies. The Big Daddy stood watch for any Splicers that may have heard them. ADAM is the fiber of Rapture, intertwining with every being, making them who they are. The Little Sisters gather the ADAM and the Big Daddy protects her from harm. Splicers are ADAM addicts, as the life liquid is extremely addicting, and whenever injected into the body, it rewrites one's DNA. The reason that most inhabitants of Rapture are Splicers is because they had injected themselves so many times, they began to become deformed. Another reason that some Splicers are so grotesque is the Rapture surgeon, J.S. Steinman, who became obsessed with Picasso-like surgeries for residents.

ADAM was first discovered by a man working at the Rapture docks who had his hand crippled during one of the wars on the surface. The sea slug he had found had bitten him and when he awoke the next morning, he found that he could move his hand. Brigid Tenenbaum, a lead scientist during WWII in the death camps, wanted to explore questions that she had that the surface would not help her explore. After coming to Rapture and hearing of this instance, she attempted to test the sea slug, but it did not produce enough ADAM for testing.

After much testing, Tenenbaum found that when the sea slug was imbedded in a host's stomach lining, the regurgitation of the sea slug produced twenty times the ADAM than normal. Unfortunately, no Rapture resident volunteered for these tests, so Tenenbaum used the little girls from the orphanage to test. This is what created the Little Sister, and as long as the sea slug remains embedded into them, they will remain a nearly indestructible little girl.

Lydia remembered vaguely when ADAM was discovered as her father was one of the few individuals who worked with Tenenbaum. Her mother had worked in the Market as a grocer, and they made ends meet without worry.

The booming sound of the Bouncer's footsteps became faint and Lydia quickly moved out of her hiding spot, breathing in the fresh air once again. She saw at her feet what she had originally come to the Market for, a can of soup. She quickly bagged as many cans as she could and took a few secret passages back to her apartment.

She closed the large metal door in the front of her apartment and placed her gun against the wall. Her apartment was rather large and one of the few apartments that weren't leaking or filled with bodies and broken pieces of furniture. Lydia considered herself lucky in finding this apartment. The floors were hardwood and the windows to the ocean replaced the walls in this apartment. Lydia could look out of her room and see a number of bright neon signs like "Fort Frolic" and "Fontaine Fisheries." Unfortunately, the city was in disrepair and the only life outside of these windows was the numerous sea creatures that weaved through the metal buildings.

She walked up the stairs to her living room which was simply a couch, a coffee table, and a small TV that was linked with other televisions throughout Rapture. Surprisingly, Andrew Ryan would send out the occasional message which he always deemed, "of vital importance" but was actually out of boredom. Other than that, the television remained off. Lydia moved from her living room to her bedroom which was the larger of the two rooms.

The floor was hardwood, but bore a large rug underneath the bed. The bathroom adjacent to the bedroom was tile flooring and fogged glass walls. On the opposite of the bed was a large wardrobe brimming with clothes, and a desk with a number of TV screens and a keyboard. Lydia used this desk to know what is going on in Rapture and hacked a few of Ryan's security cameras so that she could watch different parts of the city. This also helped her when she would go out for supplies, knowing when the Splicers were far away from her destination. She had no problem killing the deformed beings, but she knew that the amount of ammo in Rapture was finite and she did not want to waste them if she could help it.

Lydia had a number of guns that she cleaned daily to keep them from possibly jamming. Yes, she had a number of plasmids intertwined with her DNA, but even those used Eve Hypo to restore the ability's power. Every use of the plasmid almost felt like it was taking a small portion of Lydia's life away and it was replenished after she injected herself with the glowing blue liquid. Her arsenal was held in a reinforced walk-in safe along with a myriad of ammunition. She always kept it locked in the instance that a Splicer broke through her security and got inside of her apartment.

Lydia turned on the screens at her desk and started going through the camera images. She sat in her desk chair and rolled over to her end table, where she had a record player and placed the arm on the record. After going through her camera's scattered around Rapture, she walked into her bathroom and drew herself a bath. As the steam fogged her mirror, she stood in front of it looking at herself, into her soul.

Lydia had been known around Rapture as the child with one green and one blue eye. It was a birth defect on the surface, but with ADAM, her parents could have given her any eye color they desired. They decided to let Lydia decide whether she wanted to change her eye color, but she declined. She always believed that in a city which strove for "perfection" and "sameness," a utopia if you will, she did not want to fall into the redundancy. Her philosophy ended up saving her life as she watched her family and friends fall to the addictive tendencies of ADAM. Combined with the youth that the fluid gave the user, it was already addicting. Psychology and physical addiction created the Splicers, and Lydia was one of the few individuals in Rapture who did not "splice" into a stupor.

She stared at her face, questioning why anyone would want to change themselves. Her burgundy hair fell in waves to her shoulders. She had a heart shaped face and a small nose. Her lips were not thin but not plump either. She was extremely pale, but not pasty. Her breasts were ample and she had an hourglass figure. Her usual attire was a white tank top and denim shorts that were roughly eight inches above her knees.

She looked to her left and saw that the bath was nearly full and turned off the water. She slowly undressed and threw her clothes in the box at the end of her bed. She welcomed the heat of the water as it crept up her body as she slowly lowered herself into the bathtub. She cleaned herself of the sweat and blood of the attack in the Farmer's Market. Her wound stung a little, but she cleaned it off to make sure that there was no chance of infection.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of static on the television in her living room. Lydia jumped out of the bathtub and quickly wrapped herself in a towel and made her way into the living room. The white fuzz on the screen was replaced with the face of Andrew Ryan at his desk. He looked into the camera as he spoke with his typical urgency.

"It has come to my attention that a particular woman is murdering the inhabitants of this city," he began. "While I appreciate the amount of ADAM I get from the bodies, this city was not built by savages, ravishing each other as parasites would do. This woman has been here for a long time and does not appreciate what this city is. If you kill this woman, I will give the lucky person a large amount of ADAM."

_How dare him!_ Lydia thought as her fists clenched. _He has the nerve to call me a parasite when he wants me dead! Andrew Ryan, you are the biggest hypocrite that I have ever had the misfortune to know. As soon as I find you, I am planting my fist into your ribcage and pulling out your blackened heart!_

"Again I would like to remind those citizens who _follow_ the laws of Rapture that approaching a Little Sister is punishable by death," Ryan continued with no emotion. "It is not to my liking to have such a punishment, but I cannot have the essence of Rapture being used without regulation. Also, the Big Daddies are programmed to kill anyone who attacks their Little Sister and that is not my choice.

"I say this for the safety of my city and all of those who call this place your home. For those parasites who expect us to give them a share, you will eventually meet your demise. _That_ I promise."

The TV screen went to static and then black as the anger rose in Lydia's body. She imagined his heart in her hand and a Little Sister drawing ADAM from his bleeding corpse. She was so infuriated by the message that she threw her towel off of her body and redressed in her blooded clothes. Determined to send _her own_ message to Ryan, she threw on her shoes, put her shotgun into her safe, and selected her favorite weapon, two curved short blades she had smuggled from the surface for her.

Lydia made her way out of her apartment and jogged to the one place that she _knew_ Ryan would be watching on his cameras, Smuggler's Hideout. During Rapture's fall, Ryan found that one of the people in Rapture, Frank Fontaine, was the leader of a large smuggling ring in a part of the city few used. Those people who used Smuggler's Hideout, which is near Neptune's Bounty, worked for Fontaine as smugglers. After Ryan discovered that these workers were smuggling bibles, crucifixes, and many other things, he would interrogate those accused, kill them, and hang their bodies in the Hideout to make an example.

Ryan hoped that using a few smugglers as an example and sending out numerous messages, he realized that the problem had only gotten worse. He had security cameras set up during the day, when no one was there, and gun turrets in attempt to kill as many "parasites" as possible. To this day, though no smugglers remain who aren't Splicers, Ryan still continues to watch this area and remind residents of the repercussions of smuggling.

Lydia believed this place was the best place to get the city's tyrant's attention. Anger was burning every fiber of her being as she made her way to the near other side of Rapture, cutting down a number of Splicers in one swipe of her blade. She wanted to show Ryan that he had no hold over her and she would not bow to his whim. After nearly an hour, she made it to Smuggler's Hideout and to her luck; a Big Daddy was roaming the halls looking for a Little Sister.

Lydia reached down for an Eve Hypo and her stomach rose to her throat. She had forgotten her belt and she only had enough energy for one shot of a plasmid. Her original plan was to shock the Big Daddy with Electrobolt and as he stood paralyzed, she would slice his suit open, killing him. She didn't want to risk missing her shot so she decided to fight him without plasmids.

Lydia found a broken floor tile at her feet and picked it up. She lifted it over her head and threw it as hard as she possibly could at the Rosie series Big Daddy to get its attention. The glowing yellow lights instantly turned red with anger inside the suit. Lydia readied herself to dodge the first blow as Rosie came at her with a rivet gun and began to shoot. She dodged behind a wall and waited until the Big Daddy had to reload its gun.

Lydia capitalized on the moment and raced towards the suited beast, cutting its right hand off with a swipe of her sword. The loud bellow came from the monster, easily five times the size of Lydia as it dropped its gun and darted at her, its hand outstretched. Lydia tried to duck underneath the arm but wasn't fast enough as the Big Daddy kicked her between the legs and lifted her up to where it could grasp her neck with its enormous hand.

The next thing she knew, Lydia was feeling her trachea closing as the Big Daddy's hand closed slowly around her neck. She had dropped her swords in the scramble and they were well out of reach. Thinking quickly, she decided to use her last blast from a plasmid on the Rosie's face. She dared not to use Electrobolt because she would be electrocuted along with the Big Daddy, and its hand would close harder. She flicked her hand to Incinerate and quickly threw a fireball into the Rosie's mask, not bother charging the fire. Luckily, the Big Daddy released its death grip on her and she fell to the floor, gasping for breath.

As Lydia crawled to her swords, coughing and gasping for air, she heard the booming sound of the suited giant behind her. She quickly grabbed one of her swords and stood up as the Big Daddy bounded towards her. This time Lydia was fast enough to dodge the fatal fist of the massive creature. The blow from the Rosie was so hard, the metal walls of Smuggler's Hide out will forever have a crater which Lydia's blood nearly painted. As she dodged the blow she sliced the side of the leather-tough suit, opening a hole revealing… a human torso.

Lydia had never known what was inside the suits of these Big Daddies. She now realized that Ryan had taken the life of someone and damned them forever inside this suit. Now, Lydia didn't want to kill this Big Daddy out of anger, but to end its suffering. She climbed up to an overhanging second story as the Rosie rounded the corner and began to search for her. Just as it walked directly over Lydia's hiding spot, she jumped off the balcony and jammed her sword right underneath the metal mask of the Big Daddy.

The groan of the Big Daddy became silent and the lights on the face, once red in anger, had turned back to yellow and then completely black. Lydia stood up from her spot and saw what she had done and wanted to see who this person was. She grabbed the arm of the Big Daddy and rolled it on its back. Slowly, she cut the bottom of the mask off, lifted it, and gasped in horror.

The Big Daddy was once a man. His face had become pale, sunken in, and mostly deformed and below his neck had fused with the suit. It was an extremely grotesque sight for the simple fact that this man had a life at one point and it was stolen away in this suit. As a Big Daddy, he was an empty shell of his former self. His brain was rewired to serve only Andrew Ryan, protect his Little Sister, and kill anyone who stood between him and his ADAM. After the sadness and pity passed Lydia's mind, she moved to extreme anger. Just then the sound of a security camera filled her ears.

Lydia grabbed the left arm of the Big Daddy and pulled hard in the direction of the camera sound. The body moved about an inch every time she would pull. After a few moments of trying to pull a massive corpse, she decided to pause and rethink what she was doing. After looking around for only a second, her eyes were caught by an Eve Hypo lying underneath a box of smuggled bibles. Lydia lifted the box and grabbed the syringe. Just as quickly, she stuck the large needle in her arm and pushed down the plunger, injecting the glowing blue liquid into her body causing her arm to glow slightly. She felt her body regain its plasmid abilities. She flicked to Telekinesis and lifted the body over to the security camera. She dropped it with a boom and stepped into the view of the camera.

"Ryan!" she yelled into the camera, "I know you can see and hear me. I want to show you who now has a purpose to kill you! You have destroyed this once glorious city. ADAM is the downfall of everything that is Rapture, and you are the source of ADAM. You say that murder is the act of parasites yet you want _my_ head on your mantle! You have destroyed so many lives including this man!"

She lifted the back of the helmet of the big Daddy in front of the camera.

"Are you taking men from the surface and turning them into your slaves? Did this poor man have a family? You are a tyrant Ryan. You speak of no gods or kings but you think yourself both! You will fall by my hand, Andrew Ryan. _That _I promise…

"Oh," Lydia's voice lightened in pride, "If I can take down a Big Daddy with only swords and Incinerate, I don't think your precious _inhabitants_ would be able to kill me. We will be in touch…"

Lydia left the view of the camera and began to walk back to her apartment. Fighting a Big Daddy had taken a large chunk of her energy and she was extremely fatigued. As she passed them, she picked up her swords and slowly walked out of Smuggler's Hideout, passing a few of Ryan's "example" corpses. No sooner had she left the Hideout, she heard Ryan's voice over the Rapture Intercom.

"A parasite thinks that she can threaten my life," echoed the voice of Rapture's tyrant. "She calls me a hypocrite and an oppressor and promises to be the one to end my life. Citizens of Rapture, the woman I spoke of earlier is threatening everything we stand for. She would have you give her your ADAM and throw it into the sea. She wants to kill the very person who built this city. The bounty on her head is higher, kill Lydia Watson."

From all around her, Lydia began to hear joyous screams of Splicers in adjacent rooms. She was forced to quicken her pace or risk being attacked by a horde of deformed-humans with guns. As she ran, she began to hear footsteps behind her and moved to a sprint. An eternity passed before she was in the safety of her apartment with the large door closed behind her. She slumped to the floor to regain enough stamina to make her way to her bathroom where she rinsed herself off in the bathtub she had forgotten to drain.

After she was mostly clean she placed her blades in her vault and locked it shut. Lydia squeezed the last ounce of energy to drag her feet to her bed and pull the covers up to her shoulders. Her head hit the pillow and Lydia's eyes closed into sleep.

"…plane crash," Lydia heard from her television screens. She awoke with a start and fumbled over her sheets which she had inadvertently made a cocoon around herself. After she crawled to the screens, she looked at the screen that was for the Bathysphere entrance to Rapture, the only way in or out of the city.

She saw a lone sub surface from the depths of the ocean. In front of the door was a man she hadn't recognized as well as a Splicer woman. Lydia tried to zoom into the submarine, but the light inside had been shut off and she could not see inside. Just then she saw the man being torn in half by the Splicer's scythe-like blades she held in each hand. The carcass fell backwards, into the water and shockingly sunk into the abyss. Then she heard the voice of the Splicer call to the submarine.

"Is it someone new?" said the scratchy voice. After no reply, the Splicer screamed a piercingly loud and jumped on the submarine and began clawing at it with her weapons, tearing large gaping holes in it. After a few moments, she gave up and jumped out of sight.

Lydia watched closely as she saw the Bathysphere's door open and heard a curious voice over a radio. "Would you kindly pick up that two way radio," it said in a heavily Scottish accent. She had only heard about this guy they call Atlas who had simply appeared a few days after Frank Fontaine's death. Her eyes finally met movement as a well-built man left the submarine. For some reason, she lost the voice of Atlas from the radio but knew that he was speaking through the radio that the man had. Was this man the only survivor from the plane crash? Lydia didn't know about faith, but she knew about fate. She wondered why _that_ man survived a crash when no one else did. She wondered what part he would play in Rapture. Moreover, how long would he survive without someone who knew the city? Lydia had to make a choice.


	2. Chapter 2 Fall of the Scalpel

Chapter Two – Fall of the Scalpel

Lydia quickly grabbed her two swords, a pistol, and her shotgun and threw on her usual white tank top and jean shorts. She wrapped her Eve Hypo belt around her waist and placed a few more in the holsters. Stopping in front of her desk, she watched the man head towards the Medical Pavilion and her eyes widened.

J.S. Steinman was the head surgeon in Rapture and a close friend of Andrew Ryan. He was also one of the first testers of ADAM, but was only slightly addicted to the substance. Lydia truly believed that this man was already psychotic _before_ he entered this underwater city. She had found a number of recorded messages from Steinman which exposed his love for the artist Picasso and the want to, _"do with a scalpel what that old Spaniard did with a brush."_ After a year in Rapture, he began to "splice" up any of Rapture's residents that he could his hands on. This was part of the reason that many of the Splicers were so deformed.

Lydia rushed out of her apartment and shut the door behind her. She took a pod to the Medical Pavilion and got there within an hour. She didn't like to use the pods due to the fact that only a few were in good enough condition to go underwater and the Splicers may destroy the one that she used. Many questions swam around Lydia's mind. _How was he the only survivor? What part could he possibly play in this city? Will he be the one to kill Ryan?_

When the door opened to the Medical Pavilion, she raced out towards where she had last heard of J.S. Steinman's whereabouts. She figured that he would be trying to splice anything that moved. As she was navigating through the Medical Pavilion, her ears met the sound of footsteps, but they didn't belong to a Big Daddy or a Splicer. They were too heavy for a Splicer whereas many of them did not wear shoes anyway, and they were not heavy enough to belong to a Big Daddy. Lydia stealthily moved behind a wall and waited. When the sound of steps were right beside her, she jumped out from her hiding spot and pushed the figure to the ground and placed one of her short swords to his throat.

"Don't kill me!" said the low voice as Lydia looked into the china blue eyes of the man who had survived the plane crash. He had only a pistol with a few bullets and a wrench and Lydia was certain that he had gotten to this point purely on luck. Lydia felt a small amount of pity for the man and sheathed her weapon.

"I don't plan on killing you," Lydia laughed as she helped the man up. "With all of the knowledge you have of this place, or lack thereof, a Splicer will get to you first."

"Are you from London?" the man asked noticing Lydia's accent. "England?"

"I was born on the surface, yes," Lydia admitted. "My parents were from London but I was raised here, in Rapture."

"Oh," said the man looking around. "This wouldn't exactly be my first choice in places to live."

Lydia became offended, "It wasn't like this before… it was once a glorious city. This place has fallen to ruin in the past five years, and I am one of the few who haven't fallen with it."

"What do you mean?" the man asked crossing his arms.

"Why do you get to ask all of these questions?" said Lydia. "I don't even know your name!"

"It's Jack," said the man running his fingers through his brown hair. "And yours?"

"Lydia Watson," but her conversation was cut short as the sound of a scream shot a shiver down Lydia's spine. "We will talk later."

Suddenly, about eight Splicers came from all corners of the room and ran towards Lydia and Jack. Lydia pulled out her shotgun and blew a hole in two of the Splicers with ease, but a few of them had guns of their own. She threw a fireball towards one of them, but he dodged out of the way. Jack's handgun jammed and he called out to Lydia who threw him loaded pistol. He fumbled with catching the gun as it fell to the metal floor. As he went to pick it up, a Splicer shot him in the shoulder. He shouted in pain but Lydia hushed him quickly by shoving a dirty sock in his mouth.

"Do you want _more_ of them to come?!" she whispered angrily as she continued to fight. She dropped her shotgun and pulled out her swords and ran at the last deformed ADAM addict alive, and sliced him clean in half by dropping to her knees next to him and swinging her sword once. The body stood there for a moment before hitting the floor and exploding into two halves, blood cascading out of the entrails.

Lydia sheathed her swords and put her shotgun on her shoulder, then ran over to Jack who was writhing in pain. He had spit out the dirty sock and looked at her crossly. She ignored him and moved his white shirt and saw that the bullet hole was small but the steel ball had been imbedded deep into his muscle. She had forgotten to bring her medical kit but realized that she was in the Medical Pavilion.

Lydia put her pistol in Jack's unwounded hand and told him that she was going to get a few things to stitch him up and left. She searched quickly, knocking over a number of old medications and serums which shattered on the ground forming a multicolored pool. After frantically searching, she finally found a bottle of numbing liquid, a sterile needle, and some stitching thread. She also was lucky enough to find a long set of tweezers to remove the bullet. Rushing back to Jack, she found him losing blood much quicker than before.

"If you are going to be a weight on my shoulders," Lydia laughed as she poured the numbing agent onto his wound. "Then I may as well let you die here."

Jack jerked in pain, "Well I don't live here, and I've never had to shoot something coming at me."

"Well you are lucky enough to have had a good dose of ADAM," Lydia looked at his arm which was glowing faintly of red. He also had a tattoo of three chain links on each wrist. "That is always what happens when you first shoot up on ADAM. I'm going to pull out the bullet. If you want that dirty sock, it's over there… but I will not have you screaming when there are so many Splicers around."

Jack rejected the dirty sock and decided that the numbing liquid would be enough, but it wasn't. Lydia slowly placed the tweezers inside his wound and a searing pain scorched up his neck and spread out through his torso and head. He wanted to scream, but held it in as his lungs felt like they were going to burst. Lydia slowly pulled out the bullet and threw it aside and stitched up the wound, placing a few drops of Eve Hypo onto the wound.

"Let me guess," Jack said slowly standing. "You have never been shot."

"I was shot yesterday," Lydia said as-a-matter-of-factly. "But no, I don't get shot often. I know how to fight."

"Why are you helping me if you believe I am such a burden?" Jack looked from Lydia's pistol up to her emerald eyes.

Lydia sighed. "This place is my home. Having another living being here that isn't constantly shooting ADAM into their body is a breath of fresh air… Andrew Ryan destroyed this place with his hunger for power and I want to destroy him and restore this god forsaken place to its past glory."

"So why do you need me?" Jack asked, moving closer to her.

"Ryan sent out a large bounty on my head," Lydia said looking into his blue eyes and square shaped face. "I could not go up to him knowing how many Splicers are around here looking for me now… And you have Atlas on your side."

"Who exactly is Atlas?" Jack asked sitting on a counter trying to regain his strength.

"All I know about him is that he appeared after a man by the name of Frank Fontaine was killed," she admitted.

Jack nodded just as Atlas' voice came from within the radio.

"I've lost your signal on the television boy-o," said the heavily Irish accented voice. "Are you still alive?"

"Yes," Jack said and was about to tell Atlas about Lydia but she shook her head violently. "I am alive."

"Steinman is in the Surgery Ward," Atlas continued. "Go kill the bastard."

A smile grew on Lydia's face as the radio turned to static and clicked off. Jack looked at Lydia in curiosity.

"You shall see the tumult Doctor Steinman has created in Rapture," she began slowly. "Then you shall see why I want him dead."

Jack followed Lydia around the back way through Rapture's Medical Pavilion. As they began to see signs for the Surgery Ward, they also began to hear the unmistakable groan of a Big Daddy. Lydia looked at Jack behind her who had frozen at the sound and looked at her for an explanation.

"That sound belongs to a Big Daddy," whispered Lydia as she beckoned for him to move into a small supply closet. "They are the strongest being in Rapture. They have little girls, called Little Sisters, who gather ADAM for the city and for their own use. They are basically Ryan's slaves. I believe that they were men from the surface, like you, who were taken from their home and forced to become these monsters."

"Do we have to kill them?" Jack questioned.

"Not yet," Lydia pointed to the Big Daddy as it walked through the hallway. "We will come back this way and see if he has found Little Sister."

"Why?" Jack asked.

"They carry ADAM," Lydia explained. "We can use that to get you some more Plasmids so you actually stand a chance of killing anything here."

Once the Big Daddy had passed from their sight they continued through the winding tunnels around the Medical Pavilion. Lydia and Jack only encountered a couple Splicers which they disposed of quite easily and before they knew it, they were in the Surgery Ward. Jack watched at Lydia as she slowed her pace and peered around the corner into an office. Luckily no one was in there. In fact, other than the desk, only a recording machine was in that room. Jack picked it up and without thinking, pressed play.

"Aphrodite walks these halls!" the voice of J.S. Steinman came from the speaker. "She says, _'Steinman, I have what you seek!'_ and then she cuts me into a million beautiful pieces…" the tape cut off and then resumes, "No matter how much I try, I cannot make anyone as perfect as you Aphrodite!" The tape crackles and turns off.

"Sounds to me like he was hallucinating," Jack offered but Lydia shook her head.

"ADAM messes with the mind," Lydia began, "But he doesn't shoot it as much as the rest of the inhabitants of this city or as much as he would need to really hallucinate. I truly believe that he was the way he is long before ADAM. He will be much more dangerous than Splicers because his brain hasn't completely turned to a pulp… Be cautious."

Lydia slowly opened one of the metal doors to the Surgery Room 1 and looked inside. There was a set of stairs to a viewing area where people could watch surgeries being preformed and to either side of the window was another door to the actual surgery room. A few bright lights were on within the room and the voice of the silhouette within slowly rose in volume. Lydia and Jack slowly walked towards the viewing window as the deformed face of J.S. Steinman came into focus.

"…I'm trying Aphrodite but she won't stay still!" he had a young, slightly-deformed, woman lying on the surgery table and he had tried cutting away at her torso. There were also three women hung up above the surgery table and he pointed to each of them. "This one, too fat, this one, too tall, this one too symmetrical!" he cried out to the nothingness.

Just then, he noticed the both of them standing in the viewing room. "Who is this!?" he exclaimed, "They are ugly... Lydia Watson!… the bounty is mine!"

Suddenly, the surgeon pulled out a machine gun and shattered the glass window with bullets as Jack and Lydia both dove out of the way. Jack looked in fear at Lydia and screamed, "What the hell is wrong with him!?"

"He is just like everyone else in this place!" Lydia yelled and got up quickly, loading her shotgun. "That is why we must slaughter him!"

Jack nodded in agreement and checked his pistol to make sure it was loaded. They both sprung from different directions and attacked Steinman from both sides. Lydia unloaded two buck shots into her enemy but he still attacked them with his gun and a few shots with Electrobolt. Jack was stunned to see how many bullets it was taking to extinguish this man's life. Lydia diverted attention from Jack because she could dodge the oncoming blows from the crazed doctor. She would yell out to him and he followed her as Jack shot at the man. Jack continued to shoot, but missed nearly every shot.

"Come on Jack!" Lydia cried out, "I can't hold him off forever!"

Jack took a deep breath and pointed his pistol towards Steinman's head and squeezed the trigger. The gun kicked a little but somehow the bullet made its way into J.S. Steinman's spinal cord, breaking a few vertebrae and shredding the brain stem. The psychotic doctor fell to his knees and onto his face, dead.

"I never thought you were going to kill him," Lydia said between gasping for breath. "You really need to learn how to shoot that damned thing."

"At least I killed him!" Jack spat.

"Sure…" Lydia agreed. "Why did Atlas want you to kill him anyway?"

"I had set off an alarm in the front room and I needed a key," Jack said looking down at the bleeding corpse. "Atlas knew that he would have one."

Jack looked to Lydia who sighed loudly and began looting the still-warm body of Steinman. She not only found the key that Jack was seeking, but also a First-Aid kit and an Eve Hypo. Jacked watched in disgust as the burgundy-haired woman stuck the needle into her arm and injected the glowing liquid. Energy returned to her curvy body as her arm glowed like the color of the liquid.

"Is that what you have to do to reuse your Plasmids?" Jack asked and helped Lydia to her feet.

Lydia nodded and handed him an Eve Hypo from her belt and he placed it into his jean pocket. They walked down the stairs behind the surgery room and into waist deep water into what looked like Steinman's office. They waded through the water as a bloated body floated passed them. Both Lydia and Jack held their breath as the smell reached their nose and they almost vomited. Jack found some money inside a safe and Lydia found a few bullets for her shotgun. After they left the room they breathed the fresh air and Jack turned to Lydia as the sound of Atlas' voice screeched over the radio.

"My sources tell me that Steinman has been dealt with," he said with an excited tone. "Good job boy-o. Would you kindly head over to Neptune's Bounty and find Peach Wilkins. He shut off access to Smuggler's Hideout as I'm told and he will only open it to you if you talk with him."

The crackling from the radio ceased and Lydia looked at Jack. She flashed back to the previous night where she had shown Ryan her fury. She was afraid that all the Splicers in Rapture were now in Neptune's Bounty waiting for her, but she knew that she had to press on. She looked at Jack as he opened his mouth to yawn and the fatigue in her own body began to grow.

"Let's make it to the Bathysphere," Lydia offered smiling and patting Jack on his muscular back. "I can remotely stop it before it reaches Neptune's Bounty so we know that we will be safe to sleep for the night."

Jack nodded as they trudged through the back hallway and found the place where Jack had set off the alarm. Jack placed Steinman's key into the slot and the alarm turned off and the door forward was open to them. Just as they entered the hallway, they heard the booming sound of footsteps. The Big Daddy that they had passed earlier had found a Little Sister and they were on the hunt for ADAM and the body of the Splicers and Steinman had obviously sparked the Little Sister's senses. Then Lydia remembered what she had told Jack and knew that he needed enough ADAM to fend for himself in Neptune's Bounty.

"We have one more task before reaching the Bathysphere," Lydia told Jack and pointed in the direction of the noise. "We have to kill one of those."

The Big Daddy rounded the corner behind the Little Sister. She was singing softly to herself and dancing towards the smell of freshly murdered carcasses. Jack stiffened up as the large monster turned towards the two of them. Lydia pulled out her shotgun, rested it on her shoulder, and took aim. Time seemed to slow as Jack watched Lydia's slender fingers pull the trigger, the gun kick back into her small shoulder, and the bullet travel into the suit of the Big Daddy. Then he heard the booming and ear shattering scream of the Big Daddy combined with the shrill screech of the Little Sister. The combined noise would make anyone pass out from fear or flee, but both Jack and Lydia stood to fight.

This Big Daddy was a Bouncer series and brandished its drill as it rushed towards the two of them. Jack jumped out of the way but Lydia, who was somewhat taken aback by the noise, was hit by the large monster's shoulder and was thrown against the wall, stunned. She gained her balance and jumped aside just as the large drill was smashed into the wall. The blow from the drill would have surely broken all of Lydia's bones and disemboweled her as well, but she was lucky enough to roll to the side in time and shoot her shotgun again.

Jack had simply watched helplessly and was snapped back to reality as the drill smashed into another wall where Lydia had been a moment prior. He looked at his left hand which had small bolts of electricity diving in and out of it and charged his plasmid. He threw his hand out in front of him and watched the streak of lightning shoot right into the beast as it groaned loudly in pain and froze in its spot.

Lydia threw two more bullets into her shotgun, cocked it, and pulled the trigger twice at the Big Daddy's face, breaking two of the red lights that it used to see. As Jack released another explosion of electricity from his arm, Lydia matched the Plasmid with a column of fire from her arm. They both withdrew their arms and watched the large suited monster fall and the lights on its helmet flicker to black.

"Did we kill it?" Jack asked reluctantly drawing closer to the dead mass of cloth and body. Suddenly he heard a little girl crying behind him.

"Ask her," Lydia said pointing to the little girl with glowing eyes and grayish skin. "…Now you have to harvest her."

"_Harvest _her?" repeated Jack with wide eyes. "Do I have to kill her?"

Lydia swallowed hard and nodded. Jack looked in horror at the little girl who stood at the foot of her deceased friend sobbing uncontrollably. Just before he went to pick her up, Atlas' voice was heard over the radio in his pocket.

"I see you have killed yourself a Big Daddy boy-o," he said. "I also see you have a friend with you. Lydia Watson is a good woman. If anyone can kill without being noticed, it's her. Like she says, you must kill the Little Sister to harvest her. She isn't a little girl anymore boy-o, so don't get your pants in a bunch over this thing."

Lydia grabbed the radio and spoke into it, "I hope you aren't broadcasting your voice through all of the radios in Rapture. You do know that I have a rather large bounty on my head right now."

"You think you are the only one who heard that?" Atlas said perturbed. "I took precautions. Ryan cannot hear me… Go on boy-o, get yourself the ADAM you deserve."

"Wait!" said a German-accented voice from the balcony above. "Don't hurt my little one."

"Tenenbaum?" Lydia whispered to herself.

"You will not harm her!" the woman pointed a gun to Jack. "Lydia Watson?"

Lydia nodded at the woman as Jack looked from one to the other and back at the Little Sister. The two women spent a long time looking at each other when the German finally spoke.

"You of all people know that there is another way Lydia," she said. "You can spare this little girl."

"It is no longer a little girl Tenenbaum," Atlas spoke loudly through the radio. "You made sure of that."

The dirty blonde haired woman ignored the man inside the radio and threw a plasmid bottle at Jack. Jack caught the bottle and looked up at the woman who was no longer on the balcony, but on the same floor where Lydia and Jack stood. She had large bags underneath her eyes and her blue eyes glittered with secrets. Her clothes were worn and tattered in places but she wore them with an unspoken pride. She had a powerful German voice and held Jack's hand as she spoke.

"You can save them," she began. "I promise I will make it worth your while… We will keep in touch."

Lydia did not look at Tenenbaum the entire time she spoke to Jack and didn't even watch her leave. She just stood there, waiting for Jack to make the choice. Finally, Jack pulled out the syringe stuck to the side of the bottle and drew the plunger, filling the needle with liquid. He slowly injected the fluid into his veins and shuddered the warm feeling of the Plasmid attaching itself to his DNA.

Slowly, he picked up the Little Sister who shouted "No!" repeatedly as he placed his hand on her head. Lydia watched in awe as a light followed its way from Jack's chest, up his arm, and down the small body of the little girl. A bright light blinded everyone momentarily and in replace of a once zombie-looking girl was a bright brown-eyed, red-haired child. Lydia bit her lip as the girl thanked Jack profusely and rushed over to a Little Sister Vent and jumped up into it, crawling into the darkness.

Jack turned to Lydia who just stared at the wall behind him and said, "How about some sleep?" and she was pulled back to reality. They walked through the door through to the Bathysphere and pulled the Lever to Neptune's Bounty. Just before the pod reached their destination, Lydia pulled the lever sideways and it screeched to a halt. All around them was the wildlife of the ocean and they both lie down on the red cushioned seats and fell into the endless abyss of sleep.


	3. Chapter 3 Spiders for Peach

Chapter Three – Spiders for Peach

Lydia didn't know what time it was when she finally woke up. She opened her eyes and saw that Jack was watching the life of the ocean pass the window of the pod. He turned to her and saw that she had woken up and smiled. Moving over to the cushioned bench, he waited until she sat up to ask her the questions that had burdened his head since he arrived at Rapture.

"Who is Atlas?" Jack asked. Lydia could tell by the look on his dimly lit face that he had many questions that he expected to be answered.

"I don't know much," she began slightly disappointed that she didn't have a better answer for him. "He showed up a few days after a man by the name of Frank Fontaine died. I don't think anyone has seen him in person, but you can't really ask the residents here…"

Jack nodded and looked out the window and to the gun he was given which lay on the floor. "Well then, who is Frank Fontaine?"

"Andrew Ryan, the man who created this place and Fontaine were business partners for a while," Lydia pointed to a sign which read _Fontaine's Fisheries_. "That is where we are going… Anyway, Fontaine began to form a huge smuggling ring through the Fishery. Finding the entrance is going to be difficult but I didn't say that getting you to the surface would be easy."

"What did they smuggle?" Jack chimed in.

"Well you know that Rapture's very existence is based off of Adam's belief that a man's work belongs to himself. _There are no gods or kings… only man_. Fontaine believed in this teaching but knew that residents would pay anything to get their hands on bibles, crucifixes, you name it. It was kept under wraps for a while until Adam began to become skeptical of Fontaine and tortured people for information about the smuggling.

"Fontaine was also involved with providing Tenenbaum with orphan girls to create Little Sisters. He had opened up an orphanage called Little Sister's Orphanage where he helped her with experiments… This was before the smuggling ring was exposed… Creating Little Sisters was _helping_ Andrew Ryan."

"Was he killed?"

"No one knows. Some say he committed suicide and others say he was killed by a Big Daddy so badly that they could not recognize him… I honestly don't know."

Jack was about to ask another question when the Bathysphere pod began moving towards Neptune's Bounty. He looked at Lydia who had not moved and seemed just as confused as he was, but she said nothing. She believed that it could be Andrew Ryan controlling the pod because he was the only one who had complete access to the pods. Grabbing her shotgun, Lydia readied herself in case Ryan had a few Splicers waiting for them when the door opened up to Neptune's Bounty.

The pod screeched to a halt and the door swung open to Neptune's Bounty and the smell of human decomposition filled their noses. Lydia had grown accustomed to the smell and believed it to be a Splicer or a corpse. She saw that the latter was true when she spotted a spliced body that was hung by its neck and hands in front of a piece of wall with the word _SMUGGLER_ above him written in blood. When Jack found the source of the smell he turned and vomited onto the wooden dock. Lydia chuckled at him and continued on behind the wall where the smuggler was hung.

"Do you find me getting sick amusing?" asked Jack irked.

"It reminds me of myself when I first saw a dead body in Rapture," she smiled and stopped in front of the giant corpse of a Big Daddy that looked to be crushed from something that had fallen. "The city is practically littered with bodies and smells worse than that. I would definitely either get a stronger stomach fast or start drinking alcohol."

Lydia had grabbed a bottle of Arcadia Merlot and tossed it at Jack who looked at it for a second and pulled the loosened cork off and took a few swigs. After coughing for a few seconds he looked up to see Lydia looting the Big Daddy.

"What are you doing?" Jack questioned taking a couple steps towards her and setting the bottle of alcohol aside.

"These things always have a ton of money on them," she said reaching behind the giant suited monster with some difficulty. She pulled out about eighty Rapture Dollars and showed it to Jack. "You don't expect food to come free here, do you?"

"Considering everyone here is either dead or crazy," Jack began, "I did."

"Most of the food that one could take is spoiled," Lydia said as-a-matter-of-factly. "There is a good amount of canned food in the Farmer's Market, but we aren't nearly close to there. We are going to have to settle for the Vending Machines for food, Eve Hypo, and ammo."

"What?"

"Ryan made sure Rapture's people were always armed with Plasmids and ammo. The Gatherer's Garden is where you can purchase Plasmids, but don't you count on using money to pay… it only takes ADAM."

"How does that work?"

"You know," Lydia sighed. "The more questions you ask, the longer it is going to take for you to get back home."

Jack closed his mouth but frowned at her as she walked right past him without answering his question. She held her shotgun in one hand and put the money that she had found in her jean pocket. As they wound around some carnage from Rapture crumbling to disrepair, they reached the Fisheries rather quickly. As soon as they entered the first room where the fish were harvested they heard a familiar sound.

"Now we _have_ to kill this Big Daddy," said Lydia over the groaning sound of the suited giant. "You need the ADAM to get a Plasmid other than that weak one."

"What's so weak about this one?" Jack inquired offended.

"You can't kill anyone with Electrobolt unless they are standing in water," she answered frustrated.

"…And you have to save my little ones," the sound of the thick German accented woman was heard in the radio that Jack had hanging out of the pocket of his jeans. "If you choose to save my little girls, I will make it worth your while." The broadcast cut off.

"Well it looks like we're killing more of these guardians than we had thought," Jack said looking at the Big Daddy in the middle of the room. "At least I have a choice to kill them or not."

"What do you plan on doing to them?" Lydia asked.

"I want to be able to face stronger Big Daddies right?" Jack noted. "I need more ADAM to do so, so I may as well kill them… they aren't children anymore right? Just like Atlas said?"

Lydia swallowed hard and just nodded slowly without meeting Jack's eyes. She just aimed her gun at the Big Daddy and cocked her gun. Without asking whether Jack was ready, she shot two bullets quicker than she could blink. The lead entered the suit with ease but this Big Daddy was not going to go down without a fight. The light that sat where its face should be turned red as the Big Daddy charged towards her with its gun in hand.

Lydia pushed Jack out of the way and jumped high into the air causing the Big Daddy to slam into the wall behind her with such force it left a substantial dent and water from the ocean began trickling into the room. Jack hid behind a vending machine and watched as Lydia moved gracefully around the bellowing monster and pulled the trigger two more times, sending the barrel afire as the bullets sprang out of them into the facemask of her foe. Her face was filled with anger from an unknown source as the glass shattered. Suddenly, they could see the deformed face of the man within the monster. His face was contorted like one of Picasso's paintings and the look in his eyes was that of a slave. He groaned once more and fell to the ground, writhing for a moment then going limp.

"Why did you kill it so viciously?" Jack grabbed Lydia's arm and felt the pulsation of her heartbeat in his grasp.

"Just get the Little Sister," Lydia said shortly pointing to the little girl bawling in the corner.

Jack grabbed the little girl and Lydia turned to her fallen guardian and looked into his lifeless face as the sound of screams filled her ears. She tried desperately not to hear it but lifted her head to see a sea slug in Jack's hand and the body of a little girl on the floor. The screams echoed in her ears and she turned on her feet and walked away from Jack.

"Hey where are you going?" called Jack as his face blinked for a moment with greed.

"I need more ammo," Lydia called back but her voice cracked and she bit her lip, hoping Jack didn't notice. She walked over to the vending machine and purchased two pockets full of shotgun shells. Jack walked up behind her and put his hand on her shoulder but she shrugged away quickly.

"What is wrong Lydia?" Jack asked and put his hands up when she placed the barrel of her shotgun at his chest.

"Don't worry about it," Lydia said shortly and slowly put the gun back down at her side. "It's my business… Let's just look for Smuggler's Hideout."

They were quiet for a while, only speaking when a group of Splicers came their way. They walked through the Fisheries searching for the hideout when Lydia felt comfortable to speak. She didn't want him dwelling on why she was upset, and she wanted to move her mind away from the thought as well.

"What does Atlas want with you anyway?" she said as she stopped in front of a vending machine and purchased them each two granola bars and handed them to Jack.

"He needs me to help find his wife and child," Jack said taking a bite out of his food bar.

"Maybe his family was in one of the last Bathyspheres that made it to Rapture before Ryan shut it down," Lydia offered.

"Why did he shut it down?" Jack was hesitant to ask more questions due to the way she reacted last time.

"People were fleeing from the city and some of them had information about what type of city this was," Lydia explained. "They had secrets… and ADAM. Ryan couldn't afford anyone leaving. Some tried picketing in front of the pods but Ryan kept them quiet by offering them more ADAM. That is another reason that the Splicers are so badly deformed."

"Yeah," Jack agreed. "I saw some picket signs when I got in here but didn't pay too much attention as to why they were there."

"I'm surprised that Ryan didn't know about that pod being on the surface," Lydia thought out loud.

As they continued to talk about the "what if's" and why's, Atlas' voice came over Jack's short wave radio. His voices started with a screech from the radio and the heavily accented voice was heard quietly through the speaker.

"Hey boy-o," he said quickly. "I need you to find a man by the name Peach Wilkins. He needs you to help him and you need access to the room he's locked in to continue onto Ryan."

Atlas ended the transmission with a click and Jack and Lydia standing in silence. Jack looked at Lydia for some guidance as to what he should do but she just stared into his pocket with her hand on the trigger of her gun. It took a second for Jack to notice that Ryan's voice was over a loud speaker over the entirety of Neptune's Bounty.

"…I am becoming impatient people of Rapture," the voice rang off of the metal walls. "I have asked you to bring me the woman who wishes me dead. She is a parasite… and it seems that she has a friend…. Kill them both… and you will have a lifetime supply of ADAM."

Lydia moved her eyes and met Jack's gaze as she mouthed _they're coming_ and made sure her shotgun was loaded. The sounds of screams from adjacent rooms grew in volume as the two readied their weapons. Lydia was sure that it would be difficult to dispose of all of these Splicers but her heart sank as she heard the familiar groans of a Big Daddy.

She swiftly turned to Jack who was looking into his handgun and loading it up, "Watch your aim. If you hit the Big Daddy, we are screwed."

Jack nodded just as a dozen Splicers ran into the room with various weapons. Lydia sent a fireball in a direction of a group of the deformed people. She dodged a couple of shots and returned the attack expelling both barrels and using Electrobolt to electrically charge the bullets so that the Splicer's body instantly stiffened and fell backwards limp and dead. Jack followed her lead but because he had a slower reaction time, he shocked the Splicer first and planted a couple bullets into its chest.

Just as the last Splicer's screams ceased to silence, a bellowing scream filled Lydia's ears. When she turned around, she saw the red light of the Big Daddy before being thrown across the room, hitting the glass window hard and landing next to a box of decomposing fish. She felt the air being pulled out of her lungs as she gasped for more and looked at Jack who was looking at her horrified. The smell of the decaying fish kept Lydia conscious enough to point to the giant scuba suit now dwarfing Jack's figure.

Jack turned around just in time to dodge the swinging gun aimed for his head. The force of the blow obliterated some boxes nearby sending shards out in all directions. Lydia forced herself to stand and she wavered on her feet trying to gain complete consciousness. Her mind went from fuzzy to clear and back as she rested a hand on the wall breathing slowly through the bellowing of the Big Daddy.

Jack continued to unload his pistol into the suited monster chasing him, but it only seemed to make it more bloodthirsty. He tried shooting the only plasmid he had, but it only stopped the Big Daddy for a moment and the chase continued. Moving farther and farther away from Lydia he screamed back at her.

"Lydia! Help me!"

Lydia snapped back to consciousness and her vision cleared to find Jack being cornered by the unusually intelligent Big Daddy. She ran towards where she had dropped her shotgun and picked it up with telekinesis with one hand and shot a fireball out of the other. Jumping gracefully on top of a tower of boxes, she aimed her gun and fired off two shots. The monster, now a burning inferno fell to the ground with a sound like thunder.

Lydia slowly began to feel the pain of being thrown against the metal walls of Rapture and fell to her knees. Jack rushed over to her but she pushed him away. She placed her hands on either side of her head and looked up at Jack. Just then her eyes began to glow with a blue light and the veins in her body began to fill with a luminescence. Jack watched as the light from within Lydia burst outwards blinding him for a moment. When his eyes adjusted, he saw that Lydia was no longer bruised.

"What did you do?" Jack was shocked.

"You really need to learn to kill those things for yourself," Lydia ignored him angrily. "I _told_ you not to shoot him. He didn't even have a Little Sister with him."

"I didn't know I hit him," argued Jack.

"Don't make excuses," Lydia said shortly as she picked up her gun at her feet. "Excuses in this place will get you killed."

Before Jack could think of anything to say, Lydia walked past him and down the halls to a room with a silver metal door and a conveyer belt next to it. Lying on the belt was a machine gun with a number cartridges as well as a number of bullets for Lydia's shotgun. She pointed to the red belt and Jack quickly grabbed the gun and pocketed the ammo. Then they both turned to the door where Lydia tried knocking on it with her hand, barely making a sound.

"Do you have anything heavier?" she asked.

"Oh now you are being agreeable," Jack said crossing his arms.

"This is not the time!" Lydia said poking him in the chest hard. "I don't care if you like me or not. If you want to get out of here then you have to do what I say."

"Yes," began Jack. "But you told me that if I had any questions to ask you. I asked you how you healed yourself."

"It doesn't matter because you cannot do it anyway," Lydia said and asked again if he had something harder to knock on the door.

"I have this wrench," Jack pulled a red monkey wrench out of his pocket and Lydia snatched it out of his hands and knocked on the door three times and hid out of sight.

"You're helping Atlas huh?" said the man who opened a slot in the door wearing a welder's shield. "I'm Peach Wilkins…. Atlas knows that if you want to get past me, you have to do something for me… See those Splicers who crawl on the ceilings? Get me a picture of three different ones and I will help you. Don't be too long or I'll get impatient."

The door slammed shut and Jack and Lydia looked at each other. Lydia, who had been hiding moved closer to Jack who questioned her about why she was so skittish when it came to those who were not Splicers.

"I don't know who I can trust," Lydia admitted quickly. "Ryan wants me dead and has a large bounty on my head. Even those loyal to Atlas may change their mind considering the price of ADAM for my corpse."

They moved back through the hallways to the main Fishery room where the carcasses of the Splicers began to combine with the smell of rotten fish. Jack vomited in his mouth but spit it out when Lydia turned her back. He followed her, killing the occasional Splicer when they would come across a wanderer until they reached a wooden hallway partly closed off. There was one doorway that was no blocked by large debris. Jack was convinced that there was no way that they were going to find a camera in the small room where Lydia had led him. The room was overflowing with files and file cabinets. Most of the papers inside the files were too molded to read.

"How do you know this is where we are going to find a-?" Jack smiled as Lydia turned around holding a camera and a number of film rolls. "How did you know this would be here?"

"When people were first becoming Splicers," Lydia began as she inserted the film strip into the camera, "They were trying to document the different stages to see if they could slow down the process. Some of the researchers even used themselves as test subjects trying to test different tonics. This was the only place that was secluded enough and homely enough for test subjects to live. I also figured that there would be a Spider Splicer somewhere around here in the subject rooms that we could take pictures of."

She smiled and pointed at the window in the room which made up half of one wall. This looked into an observation room where, sure enough, was a Splicer banging on the door to be let out. Lydia knocked on the glass and the deformed face was now visible in the dim light of the room. He looked right in Jack's direction but could not see him for the glass was tinted. Jack's heart rate rose as he realized that this was the closest that he had gotten to a Splicer and was now seeing how badly the ADAM had taken a toll on them.

Jack stared into the soulless eyes of the Splicer with one hook in each hand and was only jolted back to reality when Lydia had snapped the picture and the flashbulb lit up the room. He looked up to her and their eyes met. She looked as though she wanted to tell him something but turned away before she could muster the courage.

"…The ones with the hooks?" Jack questioned pointing to the deformed man who was now beating on the glass.

"They are the Spider Splicers yes," responded Lydia as though she knew what he was asking. "They use those hooks to climb silently on the ceiling. Be very vigilant as they are much more deadly than the ones who we've come across prior."

Jack nodded and they continued on their way. They both knew that it was unlikely that the other Spider Splicers were locked up and that they would have to take the picture before they killed it. Lydia led Jack through adjacent rooms and hallways, fighting a Splicer on occasion, but didn't come across many until they reached the bar. A number of beings were walking aimlessly around the bar area drinking what they had in their hand. Lydia crouched down and began to slowly make her way towards the counter. Suddenly, she turned around having heard a crumbling noise from above and her gaze was met with that of a Spider Splicer.

The first gunshot was not from Lydia's gun, but rather the machine gun that Jack had smoking in his hand. He had injured the Spider Splicer enough to get it to fall onto the floor where once it regained balance, Lydia had already snapped the picture. The miniscule victory was short lived as the Splicers from the bar and the Spider Splicer were now ready to attack.

Lydia turned around, her emerald eyes ablaze with the fire she now held in her hand. She spun around on her feet and created a circle of fire around her like a lasso. She spun it around in her hand and threw it towards the group of Splicers coming from the bar area. An explosion of fire engulfed the attackers as well as the wooden walls around them. Flames licked the walls around the charred corpses forming around the doorway in front of her.

Jack had killed the Spider Splicer by holding down the trigger of his new machine gun and sending a barrage of bullets into the torso of the Splicer who didn't even have time for a retaliation attack. Soon breathing and the flames were the only sounds that fell on Lydia and Jack's ears. Both individuals were extremely fatigued from adventuring nonstop and the continual use of Plasmids was tearing at Lydia's body and the kickback from Jack's machine gun was making him sore quickly. They were both thinking of falling asleep at that moment but their thought was cut short by the sound of a hook smashing against the wall near Lydia's ear.

"Jack duck!" Lydia screamed as another hook flew towards him. Nearly missing his head, the hook made its way in a circle and back to the Splicer's hand. Lydia pulled out her camera quickly and took the picture just as the scythe hook nearly decapitated her. Before Lydia could switch to her shotgun, Jack had already unloaded an entire clip into the body of his attacker.

Again silence filled the space between Lydia and Jack who slowly turned to each other and realized that they had finished their task for Peach. The fatigue filled their body as they trudged back to the room with the large metal door. As soon as they got up to the door the slide opened.

"Put the snappies on the belt," Peach demanded.

Lydia obeyed and placed the camera with the three photographs on the conveyor belt and waited until it disappeared in the shadows. Peach's head was also gone from the small window and after a few minutes returned. His welder's shield was swaying around the window as he turned to Lydia.

"You are not bringing the heat in here," he said sternly. "If you want to come in here, put your weapons in the pneumo."

Lydia sighed but placed her shotgun into the barrel shaped tube and Jack followed reluctantly. Jack looked at Lydia worriedly but she nodded towards the direction of the now open door. Peach had left the window and was nowhere in sight.

"He may have taken your weapons boy-o," the familiar voice of Atlas came over Jack's radio, "But he didn't take your plasmid did he?"

Lydia smiled and nodded for Jack to follow her into the frozen tundra of Peach's domain. Just as soon as they walked inside the room they spotted a "Gatherer's Garden" to their left. Jack was still walking forward when she pulled him aside and towards the Plasmid Machine.

"You need a new Plasmid," said Lydia.

"How do I get one?" Jack replied looking at the complicated machine.

Lydia took his hand and placed it on top of a square pad which drew some of his blood. He winced but then saw a screen pop up where he had the choice of Plasmids. He pressed the button next to Incinerate and felt a liquid in him deplete and a warm liquid fill the void. He felt warmth lick the inside of his body like a flame. In the frigid room, Jack shivered comfortably as flames formed in his hand.

Jack smiled at Lydia who blushed slightly but turned away and walked towards a large room. They stepped into another freezing cold room which was Fontaine's Fisheries' Freezer. There were four large doors frozen shut, two on each side and a partisan in the middle of the room. Before either of them could scope out the room, it suddenly filled with steam that blinded their view. Lydia's ears picked up on footsteps growing in volume around her. She charged up her plasmid and went to reach around for Jack but did not find him near her.

"You cannot leave here!" Peach's voice rang through the metal walls. "I will be happy to know that your corpses are full of ADAM."

The fog began to clear and Lydia saw that she was surrounded by Splicers with weapons of every sort. She took a deep breath and slowly dodged the first blow from the Splicer to her right. One by one, each Splicer fell around her as she desperately searched for Jack through the fog.

Unexpectedly, Lydia fell to the floor unconscious. This was the first time Lydia had a dream, and she dreamed of Jack.


	4. Chapter 4 The Wrath of Ryan

Chapter Four – The Wrath of Ryan

Lydia opened her eyes slowly and a searing pain spread through her head and neck. Her eyes slowly found Jack's worried face which was covered in blood. The first thing that crossed her mind was who this blood belonged to as she lifted her hand to her face. She checked the source of her pain to see if it was bleeding and sighed contently to find that she was not. A large knot had formed on the back of her neck where she was hit and it sent a searing pain through her body when touched. She winced and nearly fell back to unconsciousness. Jack placed his arm under her knees and under her neck and lifted her slowly.

"What are you doing?" Lydia asked. "Did you kill Peach?"

"Yes," Jack said as he placed her in a chair. "Atlas also contacted me. He said that in this room somewhere is a secret entrance to a place called Smuggler's Hideout. There is a submarine dock within the Hideout where Ryan has kept his family. We have to find that submarine before Ryan does."

Lydia nodded and pointed to the dead body of Peach Wilkins and Jack began to search his pockets. She made sure that Jack wasn't looking as she placed her hand on the back of her neck and felt a healing light pulsate through her veins and her eyes began to glow. She kept her gaze focused on Jack to make sure he was not looking. The light dimmed and the lump in her neck had completely disappeared. Her eyes returned to emerald just as Jack turned around with two Eve Hypo syringes and some shotgun ammunition.

Jack gave Lydia the shotgun shells and pocketed the Eve Hypo. Lydia began to stand when Jack rushed over to help her, but she pushed him away and pointed to the back of her neck which had miraculously healed. He looked at her confused but she returned it with a shrug and searched for her gun. She found it lying under a decapitated Splicer which she kicked aside, picked up her gun, and shot off a shell to make sure it still worked. The sound rang throughout the metal-walled room and nearly deafened the two inside.

After the ringing had stopped, Jack turned to Lydia, "Where is the secret passage?"

"It's called a _secret_ passage for a reason," she mocked. "If Atlas said it was in here, then I'm betting it's in here."

Jack blushed with embarrassment and diverted his eyes from hers. He now felt like an idiot and that the only way to end this feeling was to find the tunnel himself. Pushing Lydia aside, he began to look for anything that looked out of place. When he did not find the tunnel in the main room, he began looking in the large freezer rooms. Lydia watched and followed him around the rooms, letting him look for the tunnel. She felt like she had led him this far, he could at least find one tunnel, not to mention Atlas practically gave him a map of it.

The last freezer they checked was filled with enormous rotting fish. The freezer had kept them from festering as quickly but it seemed like time had finally begun to take a toll. The smell of decaying fish almost choked Lydia and Jack as they entered the backroom of the freezer. Suddenly Jack began to feel dizzy and fell backwards into a shelf. He watched as two ghostly figures exited the room, one yelling at the other.

"You don't fuck Fontaine, Fontaine fucks you!" he said poking the other figure, and then they disappeared. Jack looked at Lydia for reassurance that she had seen it too, but she hadn't. She wore a confused and concerned look but Jack noticed the beauty in her face. He finally felt like had seen her caring side for the first time and smiled. This caused her brows to furrow in more severe confusion which finally became verbal.

"Are you okay?" Lydia looked in the direction where he was staring. "What just happened?"

Jack debated whether or not he should lie, "I saw two ghostly figures arguing with each other and disappear. Is this normal?"

Again Lydia mocked him, "Do you _really_ consider Rapture to be a place of normality? But in all honesty Jack, no I've never heard of that happening. It could be a reaction to the amount of ADAM now in your body. I know that the Splicers hallucinate sometimes."

Jack became quiet and Lydia felt pity on him. Was she creating a monster? Was she using him to get to Ryan? She reached her hand out and lifted Jack to his feet and a feeling of guilt flushed through her body as she looked into his face.

"I'm sorry Jack," Lydia fixated her emerald eyes on his blue eyes. "I didn't mean it."

Jack shrugged with a reassuring smile as they both noticed that they were still holding hands. Lydia smiled to herself as she turned away and released her grasp on his warm hand and placed it on the cold metal of her gun. She saw the gaping hole in the wall across from them and tightened her grip on her gun as she slowly and cautiously entered the tunnel with Jack following close behind her.

The tunnel was only big enough for them to crouch through. Luckily Lydia had a strap which she placed on her gun to move it to her back so she could move around easier except, every time she would try to move, the gun would get caught on the muddy ceiling. Finally she dropped her gun on the ground and continued down the tunnel. Jack stopped and looked at the gun.

"Lydia?" he called to her. "What are you doing leaving your gun here?"

"I haven't used my swords in a while and I feel more comfortable with them," Lydia reasoned, but Jack knew that there was another reason. "…And I can't carry it through this Rapture-damned tunnel."

Jack shrugged and thought about taking the gun for himself, but he liked his machine gun better and decided to keep following Lydia who was now moving at a quicker pace. He realized how agile she was after she relieved herself of her gun. It was almost like she was a caged animal being set free from the metal that weighed her down. She also seemed much happier with just her swords.

"Where did you get those swords?" questioned Jack.

Lydia stopped for a moment, but continued on.

"I made them," she replied just as they exited the cramped tunnel and she turned to him. "I was never great with a gun so I made these swords. They are like an extension of my hands."

"You could have fooled me," Jack complimented. "You are great with a gun."

"Maybe," a smile grew on Lydia's face and this time she let him see it. "But I am much more deadly with stealth and silence."

Their sentimental moment was cut short by the sound of a splicer splashing in the knee high water that filled the room. He was running towards them with a crowbar but the water was keeping him from running, so he trudged as quickly as he could towards Lydia and Jack.

"Let's see how good you are with those swords in this water," Jack challenged.

"Be ready to bow to the superior talent," laughed Lydia as she jumped into the air and on top of precariously placed crates.

Jack watched as Lydia moved gracefully through the air, jumping from the boxes to a ledge near the wall while unsheathing her swords from her back. The Splicer had seen her jump to the ledge and tried to chase after her, wailing and screaming. This Splicer looked like he was a worker in the fisheries clad in wading boots and an apron. One of his co-smugglers was floating dead in a crate. Lydia ran down the ledge and shot an air burst from her hand as she was propelled in the air spinning and flipping her body so that when she landed, she was standing facing the Splicer's back. With one swift motion she chopped upward cutting off the Splicer's weapon arm and slicing his head clean off.

She watched as its blood mixed with the rippling water and dipped both of her swords into the murk to wash them off. Jack waded over to her and as she sheathed her swords, crossed her arms, and lifted her eyebrows. He knew that she was waiting for him to be astonished with her skill, and he was, but he didn't want to show it.

"Not bad," jested Jack, "For a _woman_."

"This coming from the _man_ who can barely kill a Big Daddy without leaving a mess in his trousers," Lydia retorted.

They both looked at each other and laughed. Jack's spine tingled with the beauty of Lydia's laugh. His mind compared it to the touch of silk; smooth, silky, and beautiful. Lately, he had been realizing how much of a fondness he had for her. She was exceptionally beautiful but shy when it came to expressing her past. He wanted to know more about her and hoped that one day she would open up to him. Just then, screeching from Jack's radio interrupted their laughter as Atlas' voice increased in volume, replacing the static.

"I now know where the submarine bay is boy-o," Atlas explained. "I know that my family is in there! You have to save them, and I will be in your debt."

"He sounds eager," Lydia said just as the transmission ended.

"Wouldn't you be eager if you were going to see your captive family?" offered Jack.

"No," Lydia responded shortly. "My family never loved me so why should I return the favor?"

"What happened to your family?" inquired Jack as they continued to adjacent rooms, killing Splicers when they came across them.

"I don't talk about it," Lydia said.

"You won't even talk about it with me?" Jack prodded.

"No," replied Lydia sternly, "No one."

It wasn't long before they were engulfed in silence again. Lydia liked her privacy and didn't feel comfortable telling anyone about what haunted her past. She felt as though it didn't hinder her achieving any goal so it doesn't need to be talked about. In fact, she knew that pushing her past from her mind kept her more focused. Occasionally, something would trigger her memories to push through the barrier but she was used to shoving it back to the recesses of her mind.

Smuggler's Hideout was basically a maze of tunnels. Once or twice the two adventurers had to turn around because the tunnel had collapsed or Lydia had realized that they had made a wrong turn. She had only been through the Hideout once before when she was young and only remembered a small amount of direction.

Within a couple hours they finally found a room that overlooked the submarine bay. The submarine did not resemble the Bathysphere, but rather a larger submarine. It looked as though it had been use to transport the smuggled goods from the surface to Rapture without others taking notice. Lydia noticed a large door on the opposite side of the room and pulled it closed. She had seen the lever to let the submarine open and had a feeling that something bad was going to happen.

"Boy-o you did it!" the excited voice of the elusive Atlas came over the radio. "Just pull that lever near you and make your way down to the dock. I look forward to shaking your hand."

Just then, a man came out from the dock area and waved up at Jack. Lydia watched in hesitation as Jack pulled the lever. Suddenly, the doors to the submarine below began to open and then stopped. The man below banged his hands on the control panel and the voice that made everyone shiver came over Jack's radio.

"You are a parasite," Andrew Ryan began calmly. "Let me show you how parasites are treated in Rapture."

Within seconds, Spider Splicers and other Splicers alike swarmed into the submarine dock room. The submarine itself began to sink and the man at the control panel had disappeared. Jack looked horrified, his hands glued onto the lever. Lydia knew that it was only a matter of time before the Splicers would make their way to the room they occupied. With her swords unsheathed she pushed the door back open again and screams began to fill the hallway in front of her.

"Jack!" she screamed. "Snap out of it!"

Jack blinked and turned to Lydia who was fighting off a number of Splicers. He pulled out his gun and unloaded his gun into the horde of deformed humans. Blood and entrails spilled on the floor as the two made their way over the bodies and towards safety. Jack was still trying to digest what all had happened but Atlas' voice answered his question.

"Nooooo!" he screamed over the radio. "God-damned Andrew Ryan… He lets us get so close and takes it all away. Get out of there boy-o… make your way to Arcadia…"

"Where is Arcadia?" Jack said as he was running and shooting.

"Through the Bathysphere," Lydia responded pointing to a room ahead. "Hopefully, we won't be far from Andrew Ryan once we get there."

They reached the pod and hurriedly jumped in and pulled the lever to Arcadia. Lydia sheathed her swords and Jack dropped his gun. Looking into each other's eyes, they suddenly found themselves pressing their lips together. When they realized they were kissing they pulled away.

"I'm sorry," Lydia said sitting down slowly. "I don't know what came over me."


	5. Chapter 5 A Rose for Life

Chapter Five – A Rose for Life

The remainder of the ride to Arcadia was silent. Lydia was deciding whether or not she enjoyed the kiss that her and Jack had shared. She had never felt affection before so this was a new experience. Jack was trying to avert his attention from Lydia because he had been realizing his attraction to her. He wondered whether or not that she felt the same way about him.

The Bathysphere rose to the surface and the door swung open, but the two lovers remained seated inside. They both wondered whether they should say something to the other or to continue adventuring. Screams from distant Splicers rose and fell with the rippling water below the pod. The lights scattered around the room flickered with their own life. Lydia had not appreciated the beauty of her city in a long time, so she let her mind wander from Jack to the once great city of Rapture and all of the beauty it is holding onto.

"You know this city used to be the most beautiful place in the world," Lydia broke the silence yet diverted the conversation from the kiss they had shared.

"I thought you said that this place was a pile of junk?" contradicted Jack.

"As long as Ryan remains in power," Lydia continued, "it is… but it still holds so much beauty."

"I will admit," Jack turned to Lydia, "It is unique."

"_Unique_? It is the only place of its kind."

"What happened down here?"

Lydia took a deep breath, "Well… I suppose I could tell you what I remember. My parents were close friends of Ryan and supported his idea of a _city not bound by religion or rule_. They were rich on the surface and helped pay for some of this city. My father even went with Ryan to oversee the construction of Rapture. After a few years, the city became livable, so Ryan and my parents were part of the first wave of residents.

"My father was also in love with the limitless options within the city. He was somewhat like Dr. Steinmann in a way… wanting to pursue the things he could not on the surface. Tenenbaum entered the city and stumbled upon the sea slug that began ADAM and my father began to work with her to the creation of Little Sisters. Ryan was so pleased with the research that he offered to fund the work with unlimited ADAM for every scientists thinking that it would also make them work more efficiently… and my father became a Splicer."

"And your mother?"

"My father always brought back enough ADAM for my mother's addiction as well… She owned one of the stands in the Farmer's Market."

"What happened to you?"

Lydia turned her head and acted as though she didn't hear his question, "Ryan has destroyed my home and he will pay for what he has done."

"Couldn't you just come to the surface with me after this ends?"

"No, this is my home. I am one of the few who is able to rebuild this place with sanity. All that I want is to rebuild this place and restore it to its former magnificence."

"Without ADAM?"

"Heavens no! ADAM is what makes the wheels of Rapture keep turning. I would research it further to find a way to make it so that only one dose of ADAM is enough for the user to obtain a few plasmids without the crippling addiction."

Jack nodded and stood up, gun in hand. Lydia stood up and straightened her bloodstained tank top as something caught her eye. The groaning of a familiar being, but the suit was not that of the Rosie or Bouncer series Big Daddies. She heard Jack cock his gun but put her hand up and turned to him just as the suited being lumbered into view.

"See that?" she said quickly and before Jack could nod she continued. "That is an early series Big Daddy, one of the Alpha Series… but this matters not to you. The other series are hard to tell apart from these. Just promise that you will not shoot any of these Big Daddies?"

Jack looked at her quizzically, "Why not?"

Lydia hesitated, "Just don't kill any of the early series Big Daddies… They only have one specific Little Sister bound to them. Because this is an early series, their Little Sister is dead and they wander around Rapture looking for them."

"Dead?"

"Yes… During the procedure of implanting the sea slug into the stomach lining of a Little Sister, the ADAM makes them age slower, but not completely cease. Technically they may be thirty or so years old but look not much older than myself. However, because the sea slug is in a symbiotic relationship with the girl, you must kill one or the other half. If the slug is not removed from the Little Sister, it will eventually begin taking the ADAM from the host, and thus killing the Little Sister before she gets much older than ten."

"So what does this have to do with not killing these Big Daddies?"

"I told you not to. They have no reason to be killed… leave them alone."

The look that formed on Lydia's face told Jack that if he said another word, that she would slit his throat. He decided to turn his attention to the splendor of Arcadia, the forest of Rapture. Even the cold metal walls had been replaced with wood where vines had grown up to embrace it. Arcadia had small, lush rolling hills, a number of intertwining streams, and towering trees. The smell of budding flowers and grass was a comforting reprieve from the smell of decay that the rest of Rapture bore.

Lydia began walking through the hallways and trails of Arcadia reminiscing about her past. This was always her favorite place to visit, and even now, she often made trips here to relax underneath a tree with the sound of falling water in her ears. _Safety_ was what she felt when she came here. The touch of soft leaves compared to the harsh feeling of the kickback of a gun on her shoulder or the smell of newly bloomed flowers compared to decomposing corpses… Arcadia was her release.

"Is the Farmer's Market close by?" Jack tried to strike up another conversation with Lydia.

"The Farmers Market is an extension of Arcadia," she replied. "We will have to go through it before we make it to the Bathysphere. Do you know where we are to go after this?"

"I expect Atlas will tell us this," laughed Jack.

"Well the next place that the Bathysphere goes from here is usually Fort Frolic," Lydia said while stabbing a blind Splicer. "Unfortunately, those pods can't go wherever they please anymore. We had a whole system at one point, but now we have a few working ones that make a continuous circle around Rapture. I don't really like going to Fort Frolic if I can help it. That is why I use the system of secret passages between here and my apartment."

"Is Fort Frolic overrun with Splicers?" Jack whispered as they neared a group of Splicers.

"Not really," Lydia said as-a-matter-of-factly, "Even if that was true, I could clear it out in a week… No, Sander Cohen lives there."

"Who?"

"You will meet him I'm sure."

Just as Lydia and Jack were about to strike three Splicers standing over a dead body when they turned to them and disappeared quicker than either of them could blink. A large lump formed in Lydia's throat as she remembered hearing rumors of the elusive Houdini Splicers. Jack's confusion was met with anger as he frantically searched around for any sort of movement.

"Those are Houdini Splicers," Lydia explained quickly. "They can disappear at will."

"How do we kill them?" footsteps were heard behind them as Jack spoke.

Lydia turned around with a shortsword in hand and swung it upwards and as she did so, a Splicer appeared jumping backwards in the air. Her other sword slashed in a downward motion and embedded itself in the chest cavity of the masked Houdini Splicer. Jack watched as Lydia's keen sense of hearing aided her in dodging a fatal blow from an invisible foe. The unsettling rustling of tree branches nearby gave away the position of the second Splicer. Smoke rose from Jack's gun before Lydia could turn around to run towards the source of the noise.

_There's one more_, Lydia mouthed to Jack and pointed up. Six feet above them was a ledge where she had heard the sound of shuffling footsteps. She put a finger over her lips and jumped onto a tree and out of sight. Jack waited for a moment and saw the curvaceous figure of Lydia jump from a tree branch above the ledge, both swords in hand. The next thing he saw was a body fall limp, and then kicked over the edge by its assassin. She jumped off the ledge and rolled to keep from breaking her ledge. After she stood and sheathed her swords once more she turned to Jack.

"Don't think of _where_ they are," she began, "but rather think of where they are going _next_."

They continued around Arcadia and eventually made their way to the Farmer's Market. Lydia reminded herself that she had been there a couple days prior, before Jack came into her city. Again her eyes directed her to the empty shelves and rotten meat, cheeses, and produce. She even looked behind her as they passed her mother's stand where she sold her baked goods, no one of which remained now.

The Bathysphere was soon within sight. Jack and Lydia quickened their pace as the pod became clearer and clearer. Just before they reached the door that opened out to the pod, it was shut closed and a green mist began to permeate the air.

"You have left me with no choice," Ryan's voice was cold and emotionless. "If a parasite persists after you tread on them, you must exterminate them in other ways."

As soon as Ryan's voice cut out from the transmission, another took its place. Neither of them could recognize the voice but the sense of urgency shrouded any question that they may have wanted to ask.

"They call me Langford," said the female voice quickly. "In case you haven't noticed, Ryan is trying to kill the trees. That means all of Rapture's inhabitants will die. This poison in the air is why the Bathysphere shut down, for emergency purposes. If you can restore the air, you will be saving yourselves and helping me.

"You must find me a Rose of Gallagher which is in a specific room within Arcadia. This, when placed in a mechanism inside my office will clean the air from its toxins. Do this, and the pathway to Fort Frolic will be open to you."

Lydia wasted no time and began running back towards Arcadia with Jack following close behind. She pulled her swords from behind her and sprinted around corners and through hallways, cutting down any Splicer that came across her path. The green toxin was only killing the trees, but it was also choking Lydia and Jack. Once or twice they were forced to stop and try to catch their breath while more of the toxin was pumped in through the ventilation system.

Through a sliding wooden door they were met with Splicers, turrets, and traps. One of the automatic turrets nearly killed Jack, the bullet grazing the top of his head as he ducked. Jack and Lydia were forced to practically crawl around the traps to get to the turrets and Splicers. Jack was the only one with a gun and had slain a few Splicers before they reached the bottom of the room.

Aside from the turrets, the room was basically an extremely large vine that crawled up a wall which bore numerous large roses. Jack took care of disabling the turrets while Lydia carefully cut a rose from the vine.

"Are you sure this is it?" Jack questioned.

"Yes," Lydia scowled. "I've lived here all my life. I think I know what a Rose of Gallagher looks like."

Jack did not speak again until they ventured away from the rolling hills and life of Arcadia and into a glass hallway which overlooked the ocean and various parts of Rapture. He wanted to stop and look outside because he was now beginning to see the light from the sun on the surface, but Lydia continued to move. They ran through winding wooden hallways until they were finally in front of a glass window which looked into an office where a woman sat.

"You found the Rose!" the familiar voice exclaimed. "I will let you in."

However, when Langford moved towards the door, the cold voice of Rapture's tyrant filled every speaker in Rapture.

"I cannot have you working with the parasite Ms. Langford," snickered Ryan. "You are now a parasite yourself."

Suddenly, a thicker green smoke filled the inside of Langford's office as she choked and pleaded for him to stop. When she realized that there was no hope for her life, she began to write a four digit code on the window which was the separated her and Lydia and Jack… _9457_… and died.

Lydia rushed over to the keypad and turned the various dials to match the code scribbled on the window and as she opened the door, the vents began to suck the poisonous fumes from the room. They entered the room and looked at the body of Langford, a look of horror forever fixated on her face. Lydia walked over to the large machine next to Langford's desk and placed the rose inside of it and pulled the lever.

The window overlooking a room in Arcadia began to fill, once again, with clean air, and within a few minutes, Arcadia was clean once again. Both adventurers breathed a sigh of relief as their fatigue began to settle in. Lydia's shirt was nearly covered in blood and Jack's clothes smelled of death. Because Lydia knew a secret passage to her apartment, she grabbed Jack's hand and pulled him back to the Farmer's Market and behind a small sliding door.

"Where are we going?" yelled Jack. "The Bathysphere is the other way!"

"We are going to rest," Lydia retorted. "I am taking you to my home."

Soon, they found themselves encompassed in safety. Lydia dragged her feet to her computer where she reactivated her turrets and security cameras. Jack was still standing at the doorway looking at Lydia's quaint home. She took exceptionally good care of everything and had repaired anything that was broken.

"It was one of the only apartments that wasn't flooded," she called to the front door. "Jack, there is a couch up here. I have some new clothes for you."

Jack ventured up the stairs and found Lydia with nicely folded jeans and white t-shirt that would fit him. He didn't even bother pestering her about where she had obtained such clothes, but rather nodded in thanks. She smiled and turned towards her room and shut the door. Then he heard the water in the bathtub run and he realized how much he longed to bath the sweat and blood off of himself.

"You can bathe after I am finished," Lydia called out once again, almost like she was reading his mind.

The rest of the night, the two spent in the safety of Lydia's home.


	6. Chapter 6 The Maniac of Fort Frolic

Chapter Six – The Maniac of Fort Frolic

The next morning, Lydia woke with a jolt. She had almost forgotten where she was and she was drenched in sweat from her nightmare. Her heart was racing and her nightgown stuck to her figure. When she finally realized where she was, she quickly bathed in her tub and dressed in a black tank top and dark blue jeans. She put her swords in their sheaths and strapped them to her back. Before she could walk out the door, she remembered that Jack had been sleeping on her couch.

"Ouch!" Jack awoke with a start as Lydia had kicked him in the back. "What was that for?"

"Time to go," Lydia said as she pointed to her television that had just turned on. The face of Andrew Ryan at his desk flickered by the poor reception but his voice was loud and clear. He had a familiar smirk crawling across his face. Lydia felt the contents of her stomach rise to her throat as her hatred grew.

"I have seen you, parasite," Andrew smiled and paused. "Rapture's residents have seen you. Both of you, especially the one who calls herself a "Resident" of this great city, prepare to be exterminated by those loyal to me. Rapture's finest! I place a bounty on both the head of the woman parasite. If you bring her to me, alive, I will give you all of the ADAM you could ever want! As for the man, kill him…. Oh, and Lydia, if you do happen to find me, I won't hesitate to explain your _secret_ to the entirety of Rapture."

The television tuned out and Lydia pulled out her sword and with one swift swing, she split the TV in half. Sparks flew from the innards of the box, and then died. Jack looked at Lydia who looked as though she was going to cry or vomit, but she straightened up and sheathed her sword. Her head turned toward Jack, but their eyes did not meet.

"We need to go to Fort Frolic if we are ever going to get to Hephaestus, where Ryan's office is," she began. "Fort Frolic has the only Bathysphere that I know of which can take us there. I will warn you, a man by the name of Sander Cohen has a sickly twisted mind and we will probably have to perform a task for him if we want access further."

Jack was about to speak when his radio clicked on and Atlas' voice rose in volume. "Boy-o, I just heard Ryan's little _announcement_. You and Lydia will have to be careful from now on. There are more than just a few Splicers looking for you, now. Lydia, I have confidence that you'll keep him safe."

Lydia's brow furrowed as her eyes finally met Jack. "What could he possibly want with you now? You failed to save his family, why even bother continuing communication?"

"I suppose he wants me to kill the man responsible for his family's death?" Jack offered. Lydia thought on that statement and then nodded slowly to herself.

Jack wasted no time getting ready. After loading his gun with spare bullets that Lydia had scavenged before the plane crash, they were off to Fort Frolic. As they both sat in the Bathysphere, Jack's mind began to wander. He thought of Lydia and how they had kissed, but that she wouldn't bring it up again. Then he thought of Sander Cohen and what he would be like. Finally, he decided to inquire about this insane man.

"What is Cohen like?" he diffused the silence between them.

Lydia thought for a moment, "I suppose I should tell you so that you aren't shocked to see what Fort Frolic looks like now… Well… Cohen is an _interesting_ man. He has an sick addiction for collecting… people."

"What?" Jack interjected.

"He collects mostly Splicers, though he has been known to collect his "prodigies" after they disappoint him," Lydia explained. "He is a man who loves his art… too much, I suppose. He casts them in poses and then kills them by slitting their throat. A bit of red on a canvas of white, if you will."

"That is horrible!" Jack exclaimed. "How do you know this? How hasn't he killed you?"

"I was one of his prodigies a few years before this place fell into a dystopia."

"Really?"

"Yes, I sang for a time. He would always tell me about his "masterpiece" which he feared he would never finish. I never got to see what it was, but I'm assuming that if he tries to make me sing again, I will be a part of his collection. We may have to kill him if he mentions anything about you or I becoming a prodigy."

The Bathysphere rose to the surface of Fort Frolic and Lydia and Jack stepped out into a sight that Lydia was familiar with. Jack's eyes widened with fear as music began to play and, around them, dancers forever frozen in different poses began to spin. It looked as though these dancers would dance forever as their creator demanded. Their bodies were covered in a white casing and the only color on the being was a red cut below their chin and streams flowing out from the hole.

"Welcome to Fort Frolic," the voice of Sander Cohen echoed over speakers. "I see that you, sir, have found my greatest prodigy… Ah, my beautiful Lydia, how you've grown since I last laid eyes on you. How are you my dear?"

"I am well Cohen," Lydia tried to keep peace. "We come seeking your help. We need to get to Hephaestus… for Ryan."

"Well now…" Cohen's voice cracked a little. "If you don't mind, my dear, I must first test your friend. If I find that he is likable, I ask that you help me with my _masterpiece_. Then I will open your way to Hephaestus. You must come to my auditorium and see a man I am trying to make into a prodigy like you, Lydia. I'm sure he's _dying_ to meet you… Oh, and one more thing. I don't like hearing all the dialogue with you and Atlas or Ryan, so I've disabled your radio."

Jack looked at Lydia who shrugged. "I don't know how he will test you," she admitted.

Before Jack could speak, she pushed him forward. She was just as fearful as he was because she wasn't sure whether or not she was walking into a trap. As they made their way to the auditorium, Jack's eyes found every plaster-covered corpse that stood in the hallways. Some were sitting as lovers; others were standing and looked as though they were talking to one another. The more he saw, the more Jack wanted to vomit but the push of Lydia's hand behind him kept him going.

Finally, they reached the atrium. The sound of piano music filled their ears with increasing volume as they found themselves watching a frightened man. His feet were covered in plaster so he could not run. Lydia's hand shot up to her mouth as she saw that the piano was covered in dynamite. The sound of Cohen's voice was heard over the speaker yelling things like _Allegro, Allegro_ and _Presto_ to the terrified man.

"I'm trying! Please!" screamed the helpless man whose legs were covered in plaster.

"Again, young Fitzpatrick," Cohen's disappointed tone was obvious. Fitzpatrick began to play again but once he reached the same notes, Cohen screamed "No, No!" and the man stopped playing again.

"You sick f*** let me out of here!" Fitzpatrick screamed and before he could finish his sentence, the dynamite exploded, silencing him forever.

Cohen sighed over the speaker and then addressed Lydia and Jack. "I see you've met Kyle Fitzpatrick. Too bad he couldn't play like Lydia can sing! Peach told me that you helped him get pictures of Spider Splicers, so you have a camera. Take a picture of Fitzpatrick as he is now and I will show you were to place it on my masterpiece."

The sound of the explosion had caused both Jack and Lydia to fall backwards onto the floor. They both looked at each other, mouth agape. After both of them found their feet and the ringing had left their ears, they reluctantly walked up to the corpse of Kyle Fitzpatrick and took a picture of him. The photo came out of the camera and they stumbled into the other room to find a sickening sight.

Cohen's masterpiece was a number of corpses posed on top of one another holding frames, all covered in plaster. The victim's blood shimmered in the light that Cohen had placed strategically on each frame. Jack took a step backwards and Lydia walked up to the frames.

"Place the picture in the frame," Cohen's voice echoed. "Then I will test your friend."

Lydia turned to Jack for reassurance, and he reluctantly nodded. As she placed the picture in the frame, a glass box lowered quickly from the ceiling and encased Lydia within it. She banged on the glass, but it did not shatter. She tried to break it with her swords, but to no avail. She simply watched Jack helplessly for what he was about to face, his _test_.

"Lydia, dear," Cohen spoke softly. "You will be reunited with him if he prevails. Now, can we have some music?"

A song began to play on every speaker in Fort Frolic as Splicers of all types began to enter through adjacent rooms. As they rushed at Jack, brandishing weapons, his heart began to pound in his ears. He pulled out his gun and began to pull the trigger. Splicers began to fall all around him in heaps, but more took their place. It seemed like an endless battle between Jack and dozens of Splicers. Lydia watched helplessly as Jack fought each deformed being running at him, wailing and fighting back. After what seemed like an eternity, the last corpse fell to the floor. Jack dropped his smoking gun and gasped for breath. The glass box holding Lydia lifted as she rushed towards him.

"Are you alright?" Lydia touched his face.

"Yes," Jack breathed. "I'm fine."

"See, Lydia?" Cohen's voice interrupted. "Your friend is a prodigy as well… an angel of death. We must not let that gift go to waste. You must help me finish my masterpiece."

"Who is it that we have to find?" Lydia yelled to the air.

"Three men who deserve to find destruction," Cohen answered. "You can find them all here, in Fort Frolic. Their names are Martin Finnegan, Silas Cobb, and Hector Rodriguez. You must find them, kill them, and place their picture on my masterpiece… Oh, I am so excited to see you again, Lydia, my greatest prodigy."

Lydia left the room and Jack followed closely behind. Only the sound of their footsteps could be heard in the desolate corridors of Fort Frolic. They made their way to tunnels that were frozen over. Before Lydia pulled out Incinerate, Jack questioned her.

"Why did he call you his _greatest prodigy_?" he confronted

Lydia spun around, "He wants to collect me, just like he collects everyone else. I sang for many people in Rapture. People would beg for an encore when I would sing. Cohen began to try and get close to me, too close. I loved to sing, but I left because I was afraid. I had heard of what he had done to people like Fitzpatrick when the lights of Rapture went out for the night, and I was afraid I would be next."

She turned back around and continued into the frozen tunnels, blasting her plasmid in anything that stood in her path. Jack noticed how powerful she was with plasmids. It seemed like she had an endless supply of Eve within her body for as many times as she used her plasmids. He didn't think much on it because she heard a voice he did not recognize.

Lydia held up her hand for Jack to stay still. Suddenly, they began to get cold very quickly. Jack was the first to gasp for air and looked as though he froze in his spot. Lydia turned to look for the cause of this but she, too began to find it hard to move. Just before she blacked out, she heard a voice say "Looks like he sent someone."

When Lydia came to, she still could not move. She was frozen in the same position but had been moved. A sound came from behind her but she could not see. Then, a man with a mas stepped in front of her view. He looked into her eyes and smiled devilishly.

"I've got a pose all picked out for you," he said. Lydia tried to scream, but she fell back into unconsciousness. As she awoke, she was drenched in water, but had thawed out somehow. She pulled out her swords and began to search for Jack. She found him, still frozen with the same man that had spoken to her before. He instantly spotted her and his being disappeared, but his voice did not.

"Looks like this one wants to fight," he exclaimed and appeared behind Lydia throwing ice at her. She dodged a nearly fatal blow to the chest and returned his plasmid with a fireball, hitting him in the torso. He wailed in pain but disappeared again. Lydia spun around quickly, her eyes darting around searching for the man. In the end, it wasn't her eyes that found the man, but her ears. She heard him reappear at her left and wasted no time stabbing him in the throat. The man put his hands to the wound and began to gurgle and gasp for breath. Lydia watched him struggle for life until; finally, his body went limp.

Lydia quickly snapped a picture and ran over to Jack's frozen body. She tried chipping away at the ice, but to no gain. She was afraid to use her fire plasmid and desperately searched for a way to free Jack because it looked as though he was freezing to death.

"Put the picture in the Quadtych," Cohen's voice echoed with urgency. "I feel full, like an expectant mama."

"Not now!" Lydia called back to him realizing that all she had to possibly free Jack was her plasmid. She took a deep breath and shot a fireball onto the ice. As it melted, the water quenched the fire so Jack was not harmed. He fell to the ground, barely alive. Lydia rushed over to him and looked into his eyes.

"Please don't die Jack," she pleaded. "You need to get out of this place! You need to see your family again! I need you here."

With an unknown source giving her strength, she lifted Jack and slowly carried him out of the frozen tunnels. After a moment, she found a chair to sit him down in. He fell in and out of consciousness and she continued to slap him awake, her mind racing for a cure to his condition. Then she realized that if he drank some heavy alcohol, it might warm his system. She ran towards the nearest shop where she found a half empty whisky bottle. Turning and hastening back towards Jack, she placed the bottle to his lips and made him drink.

After a few swigs, Jack coughed and his eyes opened wider. The alcohol had sent a shock to his system and he slowly stood up, with Lydia's aid. He looked as though he did not know what had happened to him, but she did not want to explain and he understood. She helped him sling his gun around his back and made their way back to Cohen's masterpiece. Lydia slowly placed the picture in the frame and Cohen's voice bellowed over the speakers.

"Isn't it beautiful?" he remarked. "My masterpiece is almost complete! Only two more names on your list and… wait, don't you like it? Do you doubt me? I'll show you what happens to critics!"

"Oh no," Lydia whispered. "Not now."

She quickly pushed Jack behind the Quadtych to hide him from sight as the sound of groaning filled her ears from multiple directions. These were not the docile Big Daddies, but ones that had been angered. Did Cohen send something to strike them? Lydia couldn't think much on it because four Bouncers entered the room she was in. She took a deep breath and steadied herself.

Two of the Big Daddies had spotted her first, running at her wildly, bellowing loudly. The sound of their anger shook the very foundation of Rapture, but Lydia did not waver. She jumped into the air, and parried both blows from her assailants' drills. No ounce of fear filled her soul as she made her way up the center staircase of the room and shot plasmids at the four Big Daddies. Her eyes darted to Jack who was still barely conscious behind the stage. She ran at one of the suited monsters and slid underneath his legs, slashing both of his knees. He fell with a loud _boom_ and roared in rage.

Lydia moved swiftly and with one motion, jumped on top of the Bouncer's mas and used her swords to drive deep into the mask and flipped over the head. As she pulled out her blades, the sound of one Big Daddy had ceased. She turned around and two more were rushing at her and she walked towards them with a look of determination. Her arms stretched outwards, she stabbed both beings in the chest, killing them instantly. Suddenly, she heard Jack scream.

The final Bouncer had found Jack and was coming towards him. This was when Lydia's heart rose to her throat as she rushed to her friend. The Bouncer's drill was spinning wildly at the direction of Jack who was pushing himself against a wall, cornered. Lydia could no longer see Jack but continued running towards the monster with the drill. She heard the drill snag something, like a body, just as she stabbed a large hole into its back. The large creature fell backwards, dead.

"No," Lydia exhaled as she ran over to Jack, her eyes beginning to fill with tears. When she got to the corner of the stage, she found a plastered corpse, not Jack. Then he moved the partisan between them and slowly stood up. Lydia couldn't control her feelings and wrapped her arms around his neck, hugging him tightly. They pulled their bodies apart and slowly began to near their heads for a kiss. Before their lips could touch, Cohen's voice startled the both of them.

"I apologize for that outburst," his voice crackled. "It will not happen again."

At that moment, Lydia wanted to find Cohen and slice his throat wide open, but she knew that he would be locked away holding the key to Ryan's office. She sighed heavily and continued back to find their next victim. Jack was slowly becoming his normal self and kept convincing Lydia that he was alright.

It wasn't long before they began to hear a voice talking to himself. "I used to love you. I used to think you were a musical genius. You know why? Because you paid my rent, you ancient hack!" he said just as Lydia and Jack entered the room. Then he screamed and threw a Molotov cocktail at them and ran through a doorway. Jack pushed Lydia out of the way and they both nearly missed the shattered glass spraying out in a random pattern.

"How are we supposed to kill him?" Jack asked Lydia standing up and running through the doorway.

"Get up close!" she called back to him. "He won't throw one of those at his own feet."

They heard another bomb go off in front of them and saw the man standing to face them. He wore a mask, like Finnegan, but more colorful, and had a box of alcohol in one hand, and a lit Molotov cocktail in the other. Lydia took a chance and threw one of her swords at the man. Luckily, he wasn't expecting a blow that quickly and didn't dodge it fast enough. It hit him in the arm and nearly cut it off. His cocktail fell to the floor and exploded, sending his corpse flying backwards.

As Lydia and Jack neared the flaming corpse they heard Cohen's urgent voice, "Silas Cobb… He was a nasty one… but I think I like him better this way. Take his damned photo! Chop chop!" Jack was becoming extremely sick of Cohen's persistence in doing things immediately. He wanted to protest but he caught Lydia's eye and she shook her head vigorously.

Jack sighed loudly but Lydia lifted her hand to his face and walked over Cobb's body. She pulled out the camera and took his picture. As the photo came out, she shook it as it began to develop. They both walked back to Cohen's masterpiece and hesitantly placed the photo in the frame. Lydia awaited another attack from Cohen's army, but none came.

"The final man you seek is Hector Rodriguez," was all Cohen spoke to them.

Jack and Lydia were becoming extremely fatigued, but they went down the only corridor that they had yet to explore. They made their way to a bar, where they found their final victim sitting at the bar yelling for service. Jack wasted no time in confrontations and pulled the trigger, aiming at Rodriguez' head. The man didn't even have time for a retort as his brains flew out of his skull from behind and sprayed the opposite wall.

Lydia quickly snapped a picture of their victim and rushed back to the Quadtypch and placed the photo in the frame. From behind the plaster-covered corpses fireworks began to light up and spray colorful sparks in all directions. Cohen's voice was so full of joy; he may as well have burst with the fireworks.

"And now I get to lay my eyes on my greatest prodigy," Cohen's voice rang out. "Come, let me see you face to face! I will give you what you seek."

Sander Cohen stepped slowly down the stairs across from his masterpiece. He was bowing to an unseen audience as he neared Lydia and Jack. His face was painted white and his jet black mustache and hair made him look similar to a mime. Lydia stepped behind Jack as Cohen reveled in his masterpiece.

"You've done it!" he spoke to them. "I knew that we could work together, helping each other. Oh Lydia, I do wish to hear your angelic voice once more… before you go."

Cohen's face turned from hopeful to enraged when Lydia did not reply. Jack looked at Lydia and motioned for her to sing. Lydia took a deep breath and was about to start singing when Cohen threw his hands up and grabbed her arm. She instinctively pulled out one of her swords and stuck it up to Sander Cohen's neck.

Cohen withdrew his arm, "I meant no harm! I just wanted to place you on a stage, where you deserve to be… on a pedestal."

Lydia hesitantly followed Cohen to the room where Kyle Fitzpatrick met his untimely end. Cohen quickly pushed the stuff out of the way with a telekinesis plasmid. He motioned for Lydia to come on stage and as she did, he sat down and invited Jack to do the same. Lydia was shaking because she did not know whether Cohen had placed dynamite below the stage. Slowly but surely, she began:

_The surface holds a land of those oppressed by edicts,_

_With those who know nothing of freedom._

_But below the surface lies a world unburdened_

_Beauty as free as its people._

_The sparkles of its beauty make its residents proud_

_To be a member of Rapture._

_Adam filling the vial for life of another._

_Rapture, Rapture, forever my home_

_Here is where I will die_

_Adam filling the vial for life of another._

"My dear!" Cohen exclaimed and Lydia jumped and waited to hear the bang of dynamite. "Your voice does not die with age! It is like a fine wine, it becomes more delicious with age."

Lydia let out a heavy elated sigh. Jack helped her off the stage and Cohen wasted no time bringing them to a heavily locked door. He unlocked the doorway to the Bathysphere that would take them to Hephaestus and to Ryan. Cohen motioned for them to go through the doorway.

"Before you go, I wanted to let you know that I reactivated your radio," Cohen called back to them. "And Lydia…. Don't forget me when you release this man unto the surface."

Lydia smiled and nodded. Jack grabbed her arm and they walked into the Bathysphere. He pulled the lever to take them to Hephaestus. Lydia realized that they were on their way to finally kill Ryan. She could almost imagine herself plunging a sword into his chest and it made her smile. But then, she remembered what Ryan had promised her if she came to him, he would reveal her secret…


	7. Chapter 7 Subject Alpha

Chapter Seven – Subject Alpha

Lydia's heart was pounding in her chest as the door swung open to Hephaestus. Ryan's office was right around the corner and there, he would reveal her well-kept secret. She pulled out one of her shortswords in hopes of slitting Ryan's throat before Jack would finally know of her past. Jack tried to catch Lydia's eyes but she averted them and concentrated on getting to Andrew Ryan's office before Jack. She winded through a few halls and slaughtered any Splicer that got in her way. Jack was trying to keep up, but Lydia was much more agile and swifter than he was.

"Slow down!" Jack called to her, but Lydia continued to jog faster and faster down the winding hallways.

Lydia rounded a corner and Jack thought he would lose her but found her staring at a door, as still as a statue. Jack touched her shoulder, but she did not move. Her heart rose to her throat and her stomach leaped wildly. She felt her grip tighten over the hilt of her sword as she stared at the door that led to the office of Andrew Ryan. Considering whether or not to tell Jack about her past, the figure of a man slowly walked to the window that stood as the partisan between Lydia and her prey. When the light fell on the face of the figure, both Jack and Lydia saw that this was the creator of Rapture standing behind a glass window. This was Andrew Ryan.

Lydia knew full well that all of the glass in Rapture was bulletproof, so she could not attack. Obviously, the office of the most known man in Rapture would be well guarded by impenetrable steel and glass. Realizing that it was inevitable that Jack would hear of her past, she slowly walked forward to show her face to the man whose blood she wanted to drip from her blade.

"Ah Lydia," Ryan walked up to the window with a cruel smile plastered on his face. "I've been expecting you and I was wondering when you would arrive. You are late, you know… I know so much about you, but I could never come to terms with the beauty of your being. You are breathtakingly elegant and beautiful, but your past taints your beauty… I also see you've brought the one parasite I cannot seem to exterminate."

Jack had just come into view and looked at Lydia curiously. Their eyes finally met but she shook her head slowly and turned back to Andrew Ryan. He had a golf club in one hand and swung it around as he spoke.

"And now it is time to tell all of Rapture what you truly are, Lydia!" Ryan exclaimed as he turned on a microphone so that the whole city could hear him. The smugness in his voice echoed through the metal halls through the dystopia.

"Jack… didn't you ever wonder why Lydia is so agile?" he began with a chuckle. "That is because she is an abomination to man… an experiment, nay! She is the first experiment, the original Little Sister."

Jack turned to Lydia whose head dropped to her chest and she crumpled to her knees.

"You are probably wondering why this is so important," Ryan continued, "So I shall start from the beginning of her story.

"Lydia was a child when her parents came to Rapture. After the discovery of the sea slug, her father became one of the lead scientists working on the creation of ADAM and once he saw the results, he knew that he needed a guinea pig. At first, those like Tenenbaum and Lydia's father tried to find a way to create ADAM inside a living host. They began with adults, but the sea slug would simply die in the process and no ADAM was harvested. After many failed attempts, Lydia's father began to look at other possibilities of a living host and ventured to the Orphanage to take small children to experiment on. The male children all perished in the process, but the little girls were able to stay alive and ingest a small amount of ADAM. His experiments were not definitive, but he took the chance to partake in the first splicing. This was when he injected himself with the drug. He instantly became addicted and was seen sneaking ADAM out of the laboratory for him and his wife.

"During this time, Brigid Tenenbaum, whom you've already had the pleasure of meeting, found the answer to harvesting ADAM from corpses through little girls. Because Lydia's father was extremely addicted to this drug, he happily sold his daughter to the German for more definitive experiments, and eventually, the first creation of the Little Sister. Jack, your friend was the one who started it _all_. However, we knew that ADAM was addicting and the Little Sisters needed a guardian to keep them safe, and thus was born the first of the Big Daddies. These monsters weren't as difficult to create, though. We found a way to _persuade_ certain men to put on the suits in hopes of endless ADAM. Little did they know they would be controlled by me.

"When the first Big Daddies were created, we wanted them to be physically bound to _one _Little Sister. Look at it this way… It would let the Little Sister work harder and provide more of an… _incentive _… to keep the little girls alive. The early models, the Alpha through Delta, are bound to only one Little Sister. If their Little Sister dies, they die as well. However, that doesn't work vice-versa. But that _does_ mean that there is a Big Daddy out there looking for Lydia….

"Above all, Jack, how did Lydia survive the process of being in a symbiotic relationship with a sea slug? What you may not know is that the Little Sister eventually dies when the sea slug "uses her up." Tenenbaum only discovered the Plasmid to save those little girls recently. So how did Lydia survive the process? She came to _me_, Jack, to spare her life. She knew, as a child, that she would not live long after the slug had taken over her and she needed to have the sea slug surgically. In return, I would give her my word that I would let her murder her parents without penalty… to do what she hates most… murder the innocent."

"They aren't innocent!" Lydia screamed at him, but Andrew continued as though he did not hear her.

"Her anger overtook her and she went on a rampage and destroyed all of the Little Sisters in the Orphanage at the time in order to "save" them. She _murdered_ children, Jack. And now she wanders the halls ending Rapture's residents' "misery"… She has more ADAM in her body than any resident in Rapture could control… Lydia, I want you to show you what happens to such filth in my city. _You_ are the ultimate parasite.

"Little did you know, Lydia, that you've had the genetic makeup to combat the slugs to live through the process. This is why you are filled with so much ADAM today. You are the exception to that which has been written in stone. All Little Sisters die when the slugs take over, but not you."

Andrew Ryan disappeared into the shadow behind him and returned a minute later, dragging a large corpse. Lydia's eyes lifted to the window and immediately her hands covered her mouth in horror. Jack did not understand at first but began to put the pieces together… the corpse was the Big Daddy bound to Lydia. Jack didn't know how to feel about Lydia after knowing that she had massacred innocent children. His anger was directed at both of them because he knew that Lydia only helped Jack because she wanted to kill Ryan.

"And now I ask you, Jack, are you a parasite like Lydia?" Ryan continued, "Are you a man or a slave? A man chooses, a slave obeys… and Lydia knows _your_ secret."

"I haven't used it against him!" Lydia stood up and punched the glass partisan as hard as she could. The bulletproof glass shattered with the anger of the Original Little Sister's strike. After all of the dust that was kicked up had cleared, Lydia's face was red with hate. Jack was perplexed, so Ryan took the liberty to explain. Surprisingly, he had the same calmness in his voice.

"_Would you kindly?_ A very powerful phrase," Ryan's voice cracked a bit when his eyes met Lydia's. "Spoken by a master to his puppet… Yes, I know Atlas has been using you to get to me. But do you know his _true_ nature? The very memories inside your head are implanted, Jack. Maybe you should ask your friend _Atlas_ sometime in the future about the tests they've done on you… A man chooses, a slave obeys."

Ryan walked up to Jack, who was still frozen to the floor and handed him the golf club and stood back a few paces. Then he took a deep breath and smiled.

"Would you kindly, kneel," Jack obeyed each command. "Stand, would you kindly. Run, would you kindly-stop! Turn around, would you kindly… A man chooses, a slave obeys….. Would you kindly… kill me?"

Jack watched himself as he took the putter in his hand and swung it hard over Ryan's face. Ryan slowly stood up and continued to repeat, "A man chooses, a slave obeys" as he was repeatedly beat in the face with the metal club. After the fourth hit, the club stuck in Andrew Ryan's face and, at last, he fell, dead.

Jack turned to Lydia who was staring at Ryan's mangled face. She looked as though the weight of Rapture had been lifted off her shoulders. When her eyes lifted to Jack, she instantly turned away and walked over to her Big Daddy and dropped to her knees slowly. She put her hand to the dimmed lights on her Big Daddy's face. Jack looked at his hands and began to wonder why he would bend to the will of anyone saying "Would you kindly?"

"I don't know why you are like that," Lydia answered his question but did not remove her eyes from the Big Daddy. "Atlas has been using the phrase frequently so I can only imagine that he knows why you bend to his will. I was told that you would respond to it, but I didn't want to use you…. I was used, too. Ryan wanted me dead because he knew that I was the only one who could overthrow him, and now I know why. This man, my "Mr. Bubbles", was the only being in the world that loved me. I had a bond with this Big Daddy… my Big Daddy. I am now alone in this world… I'm so empty…."

After a few moments of silent sobbing, Lydia finally stood up and sheathed her sword her face turned from sadness to anger, "I _will_ cleanse this city by killing every Splicer. I _will_ return it to the utopia it once was."

"Well you'll have to do it without me," Jack said, "I'm still a pawn in this game."

Once again the screech over Jack's radio was heard loudly in the room. This time, though, the voice of Atlas was replaced with a man whose accent belonged to northeastern America. His tone was not that of urgency, but that of long held deceit.

"Great job boy-o," he laughed. "I see you've fallen for my little ruse. Now that Andrew Ryan is out of the way, all of Rapture's ADAM is mine for the taking. Thank you for aiding me. For being such a great sport, I suppose you should know my true name, because Atlas never existed… in physical form, that is… My real name is-"

Both Lydia and the voice in the radio spoke the same name, "Frank Fontaine."


	8. Chapter 8 Finding a Cure

Chapter Eight – Finding a Cure

Jack looked quizzically at Lydia as Fontaine spoke.

"Do you realize you've been doing my bidding this whole time?" he laughed. "Even Ryan was intelligent enough to point out my little hold over you… But do you know what the best part about this is? You can't do a single thing to stop me… Now, _would you kindly_ go get stepped on by a Big Daddy."

Lydia turned to Jack who was still staring at his handheld radio. She opened her mouth to speak but then heard Tenenbaum's German-accented voice over the radio in Jack's hand. Her voice was filled with anger and sympathy.

"I admit…" she trailed off, but then continued. "I was aware of the tests performed on you, Jack. I was there when you were born in the lab… They thought that you could withstand as much ADAM as Lydia, but they wanted you to be submissive. I-I don't know how they did it, but I know that there is a cure. Because the hold is so strong, you may need about three doses of Lot 192. You may find one in my apartment in Olympus Heights but I'm sure that there is a dose in Apollo Square in Dr. Suchong's Free Clinic."

Tenenbaum's voice trailed off in the static of the radio and then shut off. Jack's face turned from a look of anger to a look of determination. Lydia smiled when their eyes met but then her face turned back to her Big Daddy and fell again. Jack walked up to her and lifted her chin with his hand. Their eyes met once again.

"I'm so sorry this happened to -" Jack began but Lydia had already planted her lips on his. As their lips danced around each other, they thought of no one else but the other. They were intertwined as one person for moments, and they felt complete. When they parted, the reality of their predicament became realized.

"We must go to Olympus Heights as soon as possible," Lydia said. "However, I can imagine that Fontaine is trying to close down the Bathysphere, so we must make haste or have to take the long way."

The two lovers ran down to where the Bathysphere pod was when they entered Hephaestus, but it had vanished. Lydia had one more trick up her sleeve, but hesitantly used it. She took the radio from Jack and called for an old friend, Sander Cohen.

"Lydia, my dear!" his psychotic tone resonated in the room. "How nice it is to hear your voice once more. What is it that I can do for you?"

"I need your help Cohen," she faltered. "Can you override Fontaine's hacking of the Bathysphere system? We need to get to Olympus Heights in a hurry."

"I will do what I can, my dear," Cohen clicked off the radio for a moment and then came back on. "He will keep hacking the system and will know who is overriding him, so I can only do this once. From now on, you are on your own, I'm afraid. Farewell, Lydia, and do please drop by more often!"

The Bathysphere pod surfaced and Lydia and Jack stepped inside and quickly pulled the lever to Olympus Heights. Lydia placed her hands on the hilts of her shortswords and told Jack to ready himself as Olympus was overrun with Splicers. Jack checked his gun for ammo and cocked it, ready to shoot. And just as Lydia promised, when the doors opened, a horde of Splicers were ready to meet them. Lydia and Jack stayed as close to each other as possible and watched each other's backs as, one-by-one, the Splicers fell. By the time the last corpse had slumped to the floor, the two were surrounded knee-high in death.

As they slowly made their way out of the room, they saw the Bathysphere sink into the murky depths. They knew that Fontaine had hacked the pods again, so they would need a different route to Apollo Square. They made their way to the high-society apartment complex and faced numerous Splicers on the way. Lydia's parents had lived here when she was young, but she had no recollection of which apartment was theirs. She also did not know which apartment belonged to Brigid Tenenbaum. When she turned to Jack, he had crumpled to his knees in pain. She rushed over to him.

"My head feels like it's going to explode!" Jack cried out. Lydia didn't waste any time. She shoved a pistol into Jack's hand and reassured him that she would be right back. Rushing over to the nearest apartment, she frantically began to search for Lot 192. After about the fourth apartment, she found a glowing phial of red liquid. She grabbed it and ran back to Jack who looked as though he was about to pass out from the pain. As she held the phial up to his mouth, he drank. As the liquid ran through his veins, he began to glow and then convulse. After a few moments, he relaxed and sat up.

"How do you feel?" Lydia asked worriedly.

"I feel somewhat better, but I think it's going to happen again," Jack responded and then gasped in pain just as Fontaine's voice came over the radio in his pocket.

"You don't understand kid," he began. "I have to do this to you. If I can no longer control you, I can still kill you slowly!"

"He-He's d-draining my life," Jack gasped and then relaxed again.

"Then we have to hurry!" Lydia said pulling him up and helping him. "If we know that there is a phial of Lot 192 at Dr. Suchong's Clinic in Apollo Square, and we just found one, where would the third one be?"

"Fontaine's house?" Jack offered and Lydia began to help him walk in that direction until he regained strength enough to stand.

"You stay here to guard me," Lydia demanded. "I will look for the second phial. I believe I know where his apartment is."

She rushed upstairs, her eyes darting and counting the number of Splicers on that floor. She unsheathed her shortswords and ran at the first deformed being in her path. With ease, she cut them down and searched the apartments one-by-one. After she had practically searched every apartment, she saw a glowing phial of Lot 192 underneath a sofa. She used her telekinesis to pull the phial from under the couch as her hand could not fit through the hole to retrieve it herself. She rushed back to Jack and gave him the second phial. Again, he began to glow and convulse and then relaxed.

"I still don't feel completely better," Jack admitted and then fell to the floor. Fontaine was continuing to drain his life.

"We have to get the last phial so he no longer has a hold on you!" Lydia pulled Jack to his feet once again and walked with him to Apollo Square. "We don't have the Bathysphere so it will be a long walk, give me your gun."

Jack handed over the rifle that he was holding and had the pistol in his pocket. Lydia pulled the rifle up to her shoulder and aimed it ahead with one arm holding it and the other holding up Jack. Slowly, they made their way down numerous hallways, Lydia killing every Splicer they came across. Her shoulder ached from the kickback of the gun, but still she pushed through and used telekinesis to reload her gun when needed. Jack was falling in and out of consciousness as Fontaine continued to suck the life from him. Lydia wasn't religious, but prayed to any higher power that would listen to make it safely to Apollo Square without coming across a Big Daddy.

Just as Lydia's eyes met the sign for Apollo Square, she heard the guttural moaning of a Big Daddy. _Now is not the time for this!_ She thought as she looked at Jack who had fallen unconscious again. _If that Big Daddy has a Little Sister, they'll think Jack is dead!_ She found a small room where she placed Jack and closed the door behind her. She listened as the moaning became louder and the sound of large dragging footsteps formed into a silhouette of a Big Daddy. She placed her rifle on the floor and pulled out her shortswords and readied for battle.

The Bouncer brandished his drill and aimed it towards Lydia who readied a fireball in one of her hands. She heard the shrill voice of the Little Sister behind the monster's leg and wasted no time releasing the fireball. The Big Daddy was immediately engulfed in flames but charged at her nonetheless. She jumped out of the way just as the monster ran past her in a ball of fire. She wasted no time cutting the back of his knees so he fell over. After the loud crash, she used her foot to kick her shotgun into her hands, cocked it, and pulled the trigger into the back of the Big Daddy's mask.

The explosion from the bullet into the mask was so loud, Lydia temporarily lost her hearing. The Big Daddy fell over and Lydia wasted no time rushing back to Jack and helping him out of the closet. As she passed the Little Sister, she had the idea that maybe some ADAM would help Jack regain some strength. She laid him down as he regained consciousness and placed a hand on the little girl's head. As soon as he saved the Little Sister, he began to regain enough strength to stand and walk by himself. He thanked Lydia, and they continued into Apollo Square.

Unlike the higher class apartments, the poorer district was in disarray. There were mounds of furniture and burning books everywhere. Jack began to search the apartments for the last dosage of Lot 192, but Lydia grabbed him and brought him down the hall.

"Do you not remember what Tenenbaum said?" she chastised. "We have to go the Clinic."

Jack, even though he had some of his strength back, was not thinking clearly so Lydia took the lead. They ran through a maze of hallways and secret passages to Dr. Suchong's Free Clinic. They didn't have to go far before Jack spotted the glowing phial. He quickly swiped it off the shelf and drank it and felt himself liberated of a heavy burden.

"How do you feel?" Lydia asked.

"I feel free," admitted Jack.

Before either of them could continue conversing, Tenenbaum's voice echoed over the radio in Jack's pocket.

"Now that you are free from this burden," she started. "You need to defeat Fontaine. In order to do that, you are going to have to gather all of the ADAM that you can. Let me explain… Fontaine has injected so much ADAM into his system that he has _changed_. He is blind to all but that teeming with ADAM. You want to fight him… you have to get some ADAM so you are worth killing, and so that you can become more powerful. Now, Lydia has the capacity to kill Fontaine now, but she cannot touch him as they would destroy each other and all of Rapture with them. He is almost like the anti-ADAM and she is the ADAM. Jack, that means you will have to kill him… And to do this, you must become a Big Daddy."

Lydia gasped as the radio cut off and looked at Jack in horror. She knew that once he became a Big Daddy, there was no turning back. However, in order to save Rapture, he had to go through with it. She explained to Jack that once he became a Big Daddy, he would not be able to come back.

"Is there a cure?" Jack tried to reason with himself.

"I have never heard of one," Lydia admitted.

"Then what choice do I have?"

"I don't know… but we _have_ to kill Fontaine…. He is blind to all but ADAM, and he will destroy this world and the surface if given the chance."

"Then I suppose I have no other choice…"


	9. Chapter 9 Becoming the Monster

Chapter Nine – Becoming the Monster

As they ventured to Point Prometheus, Lydia was fighting the urge to dissuade Jack from becoming a Big Daddy. She loved him dearly, but she knew that in order to save Rapture and the surface from destruction, she had to let him become a monster. As she pondered, she recalled the corpse of her Big Daddy and felt a longing for him as well, but again, said nothing to Jack. As the Splicers of Rapture came to attack them, she simply slaughtered them and then left in silence. Finally, Jack broke the silence.

"Will it hurt?" it seemed as though this question weighed heavily on his mind.

"I…I don't know," Lydia wanted to comfort him, but did not want to lie. Just before she was about to hold him in her arms, they reached the "Birthplace" of the Big Daddies.

There was one large room with a number of adjacent rooms filled with pieces of Big Daddy Suits. Lydia had never been to this part of Rapture because she never had the desire to see how Andrew Ryan was torturing kidnapped men from the surface. It looked to her like a concentration camp where men were taken from room to room and became less and less human as they were forced to dress in these suits. As much as Lydia wanted Jack to remain a man, she knew that she had to put it out of her mind and focus on the destruction of Fontaine.

"I see that you have made it to Point Prometheus," Tenenbaum's voice rose from Jack's radio. "In order to obtain the ADAM needed to destroy Fontaine, you must become a Big Daddy and summon Little Sisters to harvest it for you. You have rescued my little ones so far, I beg of you to keep it that way… You will change during this process, but you will have what other Big Daddies do not, a conscience. In order to become a Big Daddy fully, you must obtain a suit, shoes, helmet, gloves, and Big Daddy pheromones. These pheromones attract the Little Sisters but smell putrid to everyone else. Because Lydia was a Little Sister at one time, she may be able to stand the smell."

Once Tenenbaum's German-accented voice disappeared, the two got to work. Lydia was slightly relieved that Jack would remember her after the transformation instead of becoming a mindless zombie. The first room they entered had suits hung in a row. It wasn't a large room, but it was overflowing with huge Big Daddy suits. Lydia tried to humor Jack, who she knew was nervous.

"Which one takes your fancy?" she joked and Jack smiled.

"I think that one is the one that will make me look thinner," he joked back. This released the tension enough to where they could quickly transform Jack into a Big Daddy.

The next room was filled with boots of different shapes and sizes. Jack chose the largest ones they had and slid them onto his feet with ease. Lydia didn't notice any changes in his personality as they continued to add the gloves and the helmet. Even after Jack had secured the helmet onto his head, he still had not changed. Lydia had an idea that after he had a surplus of ADAM in his system, he would begin to change.

"Where are the pheromones?" Jack asked as they began to search the remaining rooms.

"I haven't the slightest idea," replied Lydia, "But I'm sure that Tenenbaum knows."

Lydia pulled the radio out of Jack's huge pocket and called for Tenenbaum. Within a few seconds, the German scientist answered.

"I don't know why the supply in there has run dry unless that was how Fontaine was harvesting his ADAM," she admitted. "I suppose you may have to adventure around Point Prometheus to find the pheromones. They are in bottles marked with an 'X'."

As soon as Tenenbaum's voice clicked off of the microphone, Jack and Lydia began searching for the bottles. They reached a large room where it looked like they kept the men they captured from the surface before they were brainwashed to become a Big Daddy. There was a small window that Lydia looked out of to see where they were. She looked up at the highest tower in Rapture and saw the windows emit a bluish glow that pulsated every few seconds. She knew instantly that it was Fontaine gathering more ADAM and that they needed to hurry.

Just as she turned around, her emerald eyes found the item in Jack's large glove. It was a bottle marked with an 'X' and that read "do not drink" in black letters. She assumed it was the pheromones Tenenbaum had mentioned and told him to drench his body. As soon as the bottle opened, her memories went back to when she was a Little Sister. She felt an odd attraction to Jack's new form and had to fight herself from wanting to harvest ADAM for him.

"Good," Tenenbaum was on the radio as quick as she had gone. "Now that you have the pheromones, it is time for you to find a Little Sister vent and begin letting her harvest ADAM. You will need about three of her vials full of ADAM, so you will have to save three of my little girls. Once you have enough ADAM, it is time to face Fontaine. Make sure that you, Lydia, stay out of his way while he's gathering because, as you know, Little Sisters can see even you as a threat."

"I will cover you as you harvest," she promised. "There is a vent."

Lydia was pointing to one of the many vents that dotted Rapture. This was a tunnel system built so that Little Sisters weren't running around the city without Big Daddies to guard them. The combination of the knock from the suited monsters and the smell of the pheromones were what attracted the Little Sisters to a specific vent.

"Knock three times," Lydia instructed as she backed off to distantly follow Jack. She knew that as soon as his Little sister began to harvest ADAM, dozens of Splicers will smell it and come after them.

_Boom! Boom! Boom!_ Jack's arm pounded on the metal vent and he waited for a Little Sister to climb out of the vent. Slowly, a little girl with dimly glowing eyes climbed out of the vent with an excited voice calling Jack "Mr. Bubbles".

Lydia's mind flashed back once again to her as a Little Sister calling to her Big Daddy.

"Mr. Bubbles!" the little girl said, "The angels are waiting for our kisses! Hop Hop Mr. B."

Jack followed the little girl as she wound through Rapture's maze of hallways as if it were effortless. Lydia followed behind them at a distance knowing what that little girl was seeing as Rapture. The Little Sisters have a skewed sense of what the city looked like. They envisioned Rapture as a white silky city with soft walls and luxurious rooms. Whenever they came across the blood of a corpse, it looked to them as rose petals. Even the corpses themselves looked like angels to the Little Sisters. Everything was eerily skewed to seem like Rapture was a beautiful utopia. Remembering this, a shiver ran up Lydia's spine.

When the Little Sister finally found her "angel" she began to stab the corpse with her ADAM needle. Jack began to watch in horror, but snapped out of it once he heard the screams of Rapture's residents, the Splicers. Dozens of screams echoed through the hallways and began to grow in volume. Lydia, who was about twenty feet behind them, began to hear the Splicers coming from behind her. She pulled out her swords and readied for battle.

Just as she had predicted, Splicers began to pour into the room in hordes. She slaughtered as many as she could, as quickly as she was able. A few of them made it to where Jack and his Little Sister were gathering ADAM, but Jack took care of it with his shotgun. It seemed like it took an eternity for the Little Sister to harvest a vial full of ADAM and Lydia and Jack had to have killed over a hundred Splicers by the time she had finished.

Beads of sweat formed over Lydia's brow and fell down her cheeks as the last Splicer fell. The Little Sister looked up to her Big Daddy and waited for him to do something. Jack looked back at Lydia who gave him the hint to save her.

Jack picked up the girl and placed his hand on her head and felt himself begin to change. He felt as though he was able to hold more ADAM than before in this suit. Part of him wanted to harness the power, but the other part knew that he had to do this in order to save Rapture. The Little Sister became a normal little girl once again and thanked Jack for saving her and then ran to the nearest vent and climbed up.

"I have to do that twice more?" Jack called to Lydia.

"Yes," Lydia replied. "You will be able to harness the ADAM, trust me."

Twice more, Jack followed the routine. He called for a Little Sister from the vent system and she answered him. He followed her to the nearest corpse teeming with ADAM and let her harvest as the Splicers swarmed in. Lydia stayed back at a distance aiding Jack in fighting off the mass of deformed addicts. Once the ADAM was harvested, Jack rescued the little girl, killing the sea slug imbedded into her stomach and returning the girl to her original form.

After the third girl had been rescued, Jack felt stronger and more powerful than he ever had before. He wanted to explode from the pulsating ADAM in his veins. His vision changed from clear to hazy and back. It was almost as if he was drunk with power.

Lydia watched him as he swayed on his feet. She was not sure whether she should approach him or let him be. After a few moments, Jack's body adjusted to the massive amount of ADAM in his body. He cleared his head and looked back at Lydia who looked a little hesitant.

"I'm fine," he reassured her. "I'm still my normal self."

"I really hope it stays that way," she admitted and walked closer to him. "I know where Fontaine is… Are you ready to face him?"

"I am," Jack said hesitantly. "I am."


	10. Chapter 10 Facing Fontaine

Chapter Ten – Facing Fontaine

The journey to the tallest building in Rapture was a quiet one. Neither Jack nor Lydia even made eye contact. The air was thick with nervousness and sorrow. Lydia could only think that she would not be able to see Jack as he was after facing Fontaine. She regretted how she had treated him since he got here and how she did not tell him how she had felt. Even now, she did not want to speak of her love for him because she did not want him to have another thought weigh heavily on his mind. The Bathysphere slowly made its way to the largest building in Rapture. It swayed with the currents of the ocean almost lulling the two to sleep.

The door to the pod finally opened to a small hallway. They both saw the glow underneath the door to the next room. Knowing that this was the room where Jack would face Fontaine, Jack finally said something to Lydia.

"Lydia," he began, removing his helmet for what he thought was the last time before he would be consumed by the ADAM. "I have something to tell you."

"Yes Jack?" Lydia choked back the tears welling up in her eyes.

"I've never met anyone like you," Jack admitted staring into her eyes. "I don't know if I'll be able to speak my mind after this so I felt as though you must know how I feel… I-I love you Lydia. I know it sounds silly because we've only known each other for-"

"I love you too Jack," Lydia interrupted. "We've gone through a lot in the small amount of time that we've known each other. I have never felt this way before, but I'm scared for you, Jack… I care about you."

They both smiled warmly at each other and Lydia stiffened up when a cackle filled her ears. She pulled out her swords and motioned for Jack to go through the door before Fontaine gained another ounce of power. Just as they were about to open the door, they heard the sound of a little girl calling to Jack.

"Over here Mr. Bubbles!" she called from the vent. She had one of the syringes that the Little Sisters carried with them and was handing it out to Jack. He slowly walked over to the little girl and took the syringe, looking at it curiously.

"Use it on Fontaine," Lydia said. "He is full of ADAM and that is what the Little Sisters use to extract the ADAM. This will weaken him."

Jack nodded and put his helmet back on. Lydia gave him a wide berth and let him enter the room first. When she first laid eyes on Fontaine, she wanted to gasp, but she simply stood there, feet glued to the floor. She could barely make out that he was human. He was glowing with ADAM and was nearly bursting with the liquid in his veins. He was much larger and taller than any human and his voice had even turned to a metallic sounding tone.

"You cannot defeat me!" Fontaine's voice shouted to Jack as he did not see Lydia. Tenenbaum was correct; he was blind to all but ADAM. His eyes were glossed over, but they looked right at Jack and ignored Lydia. He had built a contraption that was feeding him four vials of ADAM in each arm at one time. However, when he laid his eyes on Jack, he pulled himself from his machine and ran at him.

Jack was ready with his gun and began to unload into Fontaine's deformed body. Lydia stood back and watched everything unfold, knowing that there was nothing that she could do to help. After a few moments, Jack realized that his bullets were simply slowing down Fontaine rather than harming him. Jack searched around him frantically for something to strike down his enemy and found a pipe. He picked it up and began bashing Fontaine as hard as he could but still, nothing. He was about to give up when he heard Lydia yelling to him.

"Use your plasmids!" she screamed and Fontaine's head turned to her and he began to chase after her. Lydia knew that if she used any of her plasmids, Fontaine would realize how much ADAM she had inside her and face his attention towards her rather than Jack. She simply slid under his large legs and used her blades to cut the inside of his legs. He bellowed in pain and before he could strike back, he was hit with a fireball from Jack. Feeling as though his ADAM was depleting, Fontaine rushed back up to his machine. Lydia called to Jack again.

"Use the syringe!"she yelled and Jack rushed up to the machine and stabbed Fontaine in the chest. He watched the vial begin to fill with liquid but then was forced to pull it from his foe when he felt a shockwave knock him backwards. Fontaine was not going to die without putting up a fight. Jack shot fireballs in his direction without taking a hit from Fontaine himself. Lydia simply watched helpless as this battle unfolded.

Again, when Fontaine needed more ADAM, he would rush back up to his machine and Jack, once again, plunged the syringe into his chest. However, this time, Fontaine had the strength to fight back and knocked Jack backwards hard. He began to fall in and out of consciousness. Slowly standing as Fontaine came rushing over to him, readying for his final fatal blow, his life began to flash in front of his eyes.

Lydia was frantically trying to think of something to save Jack. _He is blind to all but ADAM_. She knew what she had to do. Tears in her eyes, she dropped one sword and pulled the other to her wrist. She felt the blade enter her skin and cut her artery and felt warmth pour out from her arm. Fontaine instantly turned to her and ran over to where she had fallen to her knees.

Jack's eyes found Lydia and he screamed as soon as he saw her blood. He felt his ADAM begin to take over his body, but he fought it and tore off his Big Daddy regalia. Behind him, Little Sisters from all over Rapture swarmed to Fontaine, stabbing him repeatedly with their syringes, draining his life essence.

Fontaine lay dead when Jack made his way over to Lydia whose face had lost most of its color and her eyes began to gloss over. He began to sob uncontrollably as he picked her up in his arms and held her close.

"I'm so sorry," he repeated over and over.

"I-I love you Jack," whispered Lydia softly. "Don't ever apologize to me. You've given me more love than I could imagine. Can I have one more kiss?"

Jack didn't hesitate. He pressed his lips to hers and felt the last of Lydia's life slip away to the surface. Her face became still and all of the color had been lost in her eyes. Jack didn't know how long he sat there weeping but when he finally stood up, he almost crumpled back to the floor. Swaying on his feet, his eyes met a Little Sister, who was walking up to him with Tenenbaum.

"She did a good thing for you," spoke the German looking at Lydia's peaceful corpse. "She finally got a glimpse of what Rapture once was… a place of love."

"I want to rebuild her memory," Jack spoke without hesitation. "I want to rebuild Rapture for Lydia."

Tenenbaum smiled, "You may do with this city what you wish."

Jack wanted to return to the Surface, but knew that he would never really belong there if he went. He still held his heart for Lydia and had her body incased in a clear material as a monument for the Heroine of Rapture. Slowly, he began to eradicate the Splicers in Rapture and began to use the Big Daddies to rebuild Rapture to its former glory. He had Tenenbaum perform more tests on ADAM to make it safer and less addicting.

Even Sander Cohen began rebuilding Fort Frolic for his next shows. He kept his Quadtych and renamed "For my Prodigy" after Lydia. Jack hadn't realized how much influence he had on Rapture but her memory banded together the few inhabitants of Rapture who had not succumb to ADAM to create the greatest city the world will never know. Rapture had finally become the city it was meant to be.


End file.
